


Grace Surrounds Us

by athiker10



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gabriel Big Bang Challenge, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 06:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 26
Words: 37,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athiker10/pseuds/athiker10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Jess was sitting on the porch of her parent's home in Heaven when the Archangel Gabriel found her. He was shorter and more human-like than she'd imagined."</p>
<p>In which Jessica Moore learns that there is, in fact, life after death if you know the right Archangels, and that love isn't limiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many many thanks to Queen of the Universe for beta'ing an accidentally worse version than planned and reminding me of what I need to improve upon. 
> 
> Also, to Moth for making the beautiful art for this story. I'm constantly in awe. You can find her at [Tumblr](themothandthestars.tumblr.com)
> 
> Art for the story is found at [her livejournal post](http://saffron-zephyr.livejournal.com/370570.html). Go look, it's seriously beautiful.

  
  
“Why do you think this is your heaven?” Ash had turned up in her heaven and dragged her out of it, simply saying he had someone she might want to meet. Turns out Ash just though since the two of them were skinny blondes who used to know the Winchesters that they’d turn out to be best friends.  
“What kind of question is that, Ash? You know that’s my dad over there and this has always been home.” The girl smiles as she stares at her father holding onto a video camera across the room.  
“You grew up in a bar?” Jess blurts out  
“What’s it to you?” Jo looks back at her sharply and Jess shrugs.  
“I- Isn’t that kind of odd?” She finally says.  
“No stranger than growing up in a 1967 Chevy Impala like Dean and Sam did,” Jo lifts the bottle of beer to her lips, tips it back before setting it down on the scratched wooden surface. “Or did you not know that?”  
“I-“ Jess pauses. “I can’t say I’m surprised.” Jo shakes her head as she sips her beer.  
Ok, so maybe they aren’t too different, but it’s not like she’s automatically best friends with someone because they’re blonde and skinny and know the same guys as she does.  
It’s the third or fourth time she visits when it happens. Ash, of course, is long gone, bored by what he deems ‘silly girl gossip’ so he’s no help. Jo flickers. They both stare and Jess opens her mouth to say something and then it’s like she’s just.. Gone.  
Ok. So. Jess is stuck in her friend’s heaven and her friend has just flickered out. She’s not panicking. Nope. She’s not panicking because it’s totally impossible to panic because she’s in heaven. Which is forever.  
And then Jo is there again, but she’s reaching for something and when she sees Jess, it’s like a light goes out. “What?” Jess demands. “What the hell, Jo?”  
Jo shakes her head. “Egyptian God just dragged me down to earth.”  
“They can do that?” Jo turns away and then Ash is there, dragging her back to her own version of Heaven.  
She never hears about what happened but Ash teaches her how to jump between heavens without him. Time passes, but time passing doesn’t matter. She sees a favorite great aunt enjoying her garden and makes her way back to Jo, who is laughing with a dark haired woman named Pamela. Pamela tells her about when an angel blinded her on earth and Dean and Sam got her dead. Jess flinches but Pamela just laughs and says she’s gonna make friends with her yet.  
At some point she realizes that she hasn’t seen her parents in a while and decides to drop in. Sometimes they realize it’s actually her and sometimes they don’t. It’s nice either way although she suspects that if she were part of the living world she might have more of an issue with it.


	2. Chapter 2

Jess is standing on the porch of her parents' home in their heaven. She could have been in her own heaven, but it had gotten boring with no one else around. She’d just seen Ash and Jo, so it was time to visit her parents. 

Angels had met her when she’d arrived but they didn’t come into the human souls’ heavens often; she hadn't seen one since she'd Ash had shown her MLK Jr’s heaven. They'd never visited her heaven or her parents' heaven.

Except today seems to be the first day an Angel has decided to gate crash her parents' heaven. She ignores him because Ash had mentioned that either they were looking for you which meant that you were found or they were looking to hide from something or someone. She continues knitting and chatting with her mother. Until he’s standing in front of her and her mother is suddenly inside. He’s short, she realizes. She hadn't noticed that before, his presence is so much larger than life, his Grace filling her own heaven and beyond, stretching. But his physical form, the one that looks human, is short with combed back golden hair and gold eyes. He has laugh lines, which is odd because most angels don’t have a sense of humor.

“Jessica Moore, you should answer when angels' speak to you.” He’s leaning over her (She’s suddenly sitting on her front stoop. It happens) and some of his hair falls into his eyes. It makes him look almost human.

“I’m sorry, did you say you were an Angel? You look rather like a golden mouse to me.” Jess smiles lightly as the Angel raises his eyebrows, steps slightly back. 

“Huh,well aren't you just a smart ass.” He's been around humans on Earth a lot, Jess thinks. 

“It's my heaven," Jess says, raising her eyebrows. 

"No, it's not." She shrugs. Gabriel rolls his eyes. “Well, Sam Winchester misses you and-“

“Wait, why do you know Sam Winchester? Why would you have anything to do with him? Leave him alone, he deserves to have his own life without interference from heaven!” Jess snaps. 

“Who says-wait, how would you know angels interfere in people’s lives?” Gabriel asks. 

“Because I don’t take no for an answer. What have you done to Sam?” Jess leans up into the angel’s space, enjoying the time to verbally spar with someone again. She loved her parents but it honestly got rather repetitive. In a lovely way. She swore. It was a nice respite from reliving the memory of how she had died. 

“Oh, honey, the better question is to ask what I haven’t done to Sam.” The angel waggles his eyebrows at her. 

Jess rears back, eyebrows clenching together. “Who are you?” She finally asks after a pause. 

“I’ve got many names. Here, they like to call me Gabriel.” He’s the archangel. An archangel who has been missing for millenia according to the gossip chains. Human souls had a gossip chain, no matter what the angels who ran the place thought. Everyone knew he’d run away. What was he doing back, why hadn’t she heard? Gossip like this was too precious to pass up. The first person to pass the news would be revered. Was she really that lucky? 

“Weren’t you gone? Didn’t you like, scream at your brothers that you hated them and threaten to kill them if they came after you?” Jess asks. 

“Who told you that? Because whoever did is a liar.” There’s the steel voice of an archangel and Jess smiles, despite the ice suddenly running through her (nonexistent) veins. “I ran, but I yelled nothing at my brothers. I hid but I did nothing to hurt my sisters.” Jess bites her lip, accepting the shakedown. 

“Ok.” 

“Ok? That’s it?” Gabriel stalks past her and she follows as he wanders around her porch. 

“Well, what else am I supposed to say to the archangel Gabriel? I’m having enough trouble understanding why I’m talking to you." 

“Sam. Obviously.” 

“What does Sam have to do with this? Why do you keep bringing him up?” Jess demands. 

“Because I, unfortunately for both of us-us being Sam and I, not you sweetheart-am in love with him.” Jess gapes at him. There’s no better word for it. Her mouth is hanging open despite her desire to not look like a fish. She tells it to close and it doesn’t. 

“I um, I wait, you love Sam? Like love love?”

“Love love. It’s a sad defect in my being.” Gabriel says with a shrug. “Unfortunately it seems, despite my awesome celestial being, that I can’t fix everything that’s broken and I can’t protect him if he doesn’t want me to be there.” 

“I’m..” Jess flounders, trying not to be jealous of this man. Also, that Sam could be attracted to a man, that was new. Not that there was anything wrong with it, but he’d never mentioned it and she’d dated him for a good year and a half. “I’m sorry?” 

“Oh, stop pretending,” Gabriel blows her off. 

“Pretending what?” Jess says bewildered. 

“That you’re sorry,” Gabriel narrows his eyes. Oh yes, Angels could probably read minds (Did she have a true mind up here? She wasn’t actually corporeal after all). All she can do is shrug. 

“I am sorry that it didn't work out. Even if I am still having trouble with the idea of Sam with anyone else. I thought I was going to marry him.” Jess spits. “Until whatever it was, the demon or Brady or whatever came into my room put me on the ceiling, cut my stomach open and burned me to death in front of Sam.” 

“You were.” Gabriel’s face is solemn. 

“Were what?” Jess flies around, her hair following her. 

“Going to marry him of course. He was looking for rings. It took him years to at least act as if he were over you.” 

“Good.” She crosses her arms over her chest, inexplicable warmth radiating throughout. 

“Whatever.” Gabriel rolls his eyes. 

“Did you just whatever me? Did an Archangel just whatever me?” Jess raises an eyebrow. 

“Yeah. Whatever, Jess.” Gabriel pauses leans back on the porch railing that suddenly appeared there. “I came here to ask you a very important question. I want you to think about it very seriously. I can come back in what feels like a few hours or days if this is a bad time."

“Just get on with it. Are other angels this aggravating?” Jess rolls her eyes wondering what he could possibly want to ask her. She had never been anything particularly special in life. 

“I’m one of a kind, baby.” Gabriel winks. “Do you want to go back to Earth to spend a normal life time with Sam?” 

“What?” Jess asks. If she still had a heart it might have imploded in her throat. 

“That’s the question. Do you want to go back to Earth and spend a lifetime with Sam Winchester? Of course there are-“

“Yes! Yes, of course. Absolutely. When?” Jess asks darting forwards, having to keep herself from touching this celestial being who is suddenly offering her everything. 

“You haven’t heard the stipulations!” 

“I don’t care. Whatever it is, I'll do it. I want to spend the rest of a life with Sam and an afterlife.” 

“Well, the afterlife could get interesting…”

“What? Why?" Jess demands and Gabriel blinks. 

“Its hard to get shared heavens." She just looks at him, glancing purposefully at her parents before him again. He rolls his eyes. "Never mind. As I said there are stipulations.” 

“What stipulations?” 

“I’m going to have to train you for as long as it takes when you get your body back. It’s been seven years since you’ve been on earth and a lot has happened. I’m going to have to physically train you so you don’t become a danger to Sam in his life.”

“Train me? How would I be a danger to Sam?” Jess can’t begin to understand how she could hurt Sam. She’d never hurt a fly.

“Exactly.” Gabriel speaks and Jess jumps realizing he’d read her thoughts. “You’ve never hurt a fly and what Sam does, well, it’s violent and many beings would jump at the chance to hurt him through you. In fact they already have.” 

“Wait, the demon or whatever it was, that was because of Sam?” Jess asks, her throat clenching shut. 

“I knew he saw something in you.” Gabriel laughs before sobering again. “Yes. Long story short, my brother Lucifer wanted to wear Sam to commit his nefarious deeds on this planet. Sam didn’t feel like being Lucy’s meatsuit and since he and his brother are Hunters, they had more resources to fight it than normal people.”

“I. Uh. What?” Jess finally manages to say. 

“Sam almost held Lucifer. Just like I would have had to find a vessel except I’m brilliant enough to have made my own!” He looks at her as if he expects her to swoon over that. She snorts and his expression falls slightly. 

“Yeah, but.. You said he and his family.. Hunter?” She caught the capital this time, when she’d missed it that one time Dean had spoken about it in front of her with Sam. 

“Oh. You didn’t know, did you? Of course not.. Sam was avoiding all association. The idiot.” Gabriel shakes his head. “Sam was raised to Hunt the supernatural. Ghosts, demons, monsters. Me." 

“But… he was so normal in college?” Reconciling this new image is hard.

“I’m going to give you a few days to think about the offer-“ Gabriel turns to leave and Jess flings out a hand to stop him. 

“No, wait. I’ve made my decision. I want to. Whatever it takes, I want to spend the rest of a life with Sam. We’ll get to the afterlife when it comes.” She grabs Gabriel’s arm and it’s surprisingly human feeling. She could still see the glow of his wings, of his True Form, but it was like they were fading into the background. After all she could only talk to the angel in a humanoid form. 

“Are you sure? I think you should think about it.”

“I’m serious. No matter what, I want to spend my life with Sam.”

“Well ok then.” Gabriel’s hand moves in a flash. Just before he snaps Jess remembers that she hasn’t said a thing to her parents.


	3. Chapter 3

She wakes, not with a loud inhale of breath as she’d imagined, but as if from a deep slumber. She hadn’t slept since the pain had slipped away and she’d found herself standing in the middle of Heaven’s entryway, filled with the knowledge that she’d left Sam. Left him somewhere he couldn’t follow her. She hadn’t slept since. She could have made it happen, if she’d truly wanted it. That’s what they said anyways. Ash said it, the others who’d travelled between heavens did too. Something about Heaven being a human mind’s construct that wasn’t ruled by the physics on earth and was more about how you perceive things and wish them to be. In short order, if you wished something, it happened. 

Her parents wouldn't understand why she’d jump at the chance to leave heaven for earth. It was heaven. 

But Heaven didn’t have Sam Winchester.

“There you are,” a cheerful voice calls out. Jess rolls onto her back and lifts her head to see Gabriel sitting on a table, eating a Crackle bar. 

“Hngh?” Rubbing at her temple, she sits up, thoroughly pleased with just how much her body aches.

“So that’s what humans sound like when they’re reborn and haven’t used their vocal cords in years.” Gabriel is laughing. “You sound like shit.” 

“Thanks,” Jess mumbles, pushing herself up so she’s propped up on her hands. Well, until she realizes she’s naked and then she’s off the floor in a flash, trying desperately to find something, anything to cover herself up with. 

Gabriel is silent for the moment as she scrambles around the room. He’s silent and then he is filling the room with laughter, bright and full. Jess blushes harder. “You’re looking for these, I think,” Gabriel holds up clothing and Jess darts over, shoving the underclothes on as fast as she can and catching the shirt around her neck for a few moments. 

Damn Archangels. “Thanks,” She mumbles as she looks around the room. It was plain. White walls, white ceiling, nondescript lighting. Others might even call it utilitarian. Gabriel was staring at her and it made her skin crawl. “What?”

“You’re smarter than I gave you credit for.” Gabriel pops the rest of the candy bar into his mouth, chewing noisily before grinning, all chocolate covered teeth. 

“Ew,” Jess says. Of all things to be first on her list to see when she’s back on earth, half masticated food definitely hadn’t made the top thousand. “So?” 

“Well, I already told you, Sam’s life is…not what you think it is. Well. Actually, I don’t know what you think it is. What do you think?” Gabriel asks and Jess blinks.

“I, uh. Well, he wanted to be a lawyer, so I dunno, he went to law school?” Something tickles at the edge of her mind as she says that and she frowns.

“BEEEP Wrong,” Gabriel says standing. He comes toward Jess and she backs away, fumbling around a chair that is suddenly behind her, grabbing to its backrest and holding it in front of her. She’s still new to her body though and the chair legs drag across the concrete floor, the noise grating on her ears. 

He stopped, thankfully, staring at her thoughtfully and then he smiles, and for a flash, she can see it again, his Grace. She’d known instinctively it was going to be invisible back on Earth (Where was Heaven anyways?) but now with that flash, she felt a longing to see more. 

“What was I wrong about? I barely said anything!” Jess protests. “Sam wanted to be a lawyer and if you loved him, you know he can be like a dog with a bone.”

“Well, let’s see. Why would Sam not be a lawyer. Ah. Yes. Demons killed you.” Gabriel says this as if it’s not a big deal and Jess stares at him. 

“Wait, he’s not a lawyer because of me? Ooh, I’ll kill him. I will tear him to pieces myself, I’ll-“

“Hang on there, a sec, Jess: can I call you Jess? Jessgirl?” 

“WHAT?” Jess glares at the blonde angel. 

“Don’t you think your reaction is a little,” Gabriel pauses here for a moment and Jess clenches and unclenches her fists. “Overblown?” he finally chooses his word. 

“No.” Jess says and then blinks, realizing how she’s sounded. “Maybe?” Her voice shutters down to a whisper and color flames through her cheeks. 

“Well. Obviously you’re prone to emotional cycling. We’ll tick that against typical symptoms of resurrection.”

“I thought-I thought you had done this before?” Jess finally asks. 

“I haven’t! But in case I do I again, I want to know what to expect. Makes it easier to mess with ‘em, you know.” Jess wrinkles her nose and for some reason she can’t figure out, Gabriel snickers. 

“Where are we?” She glances around again to make her point. 

“Fairbanks, Alaska.” Gabriel is sucking on a lollypop now. 

“How do you eat so much candy?

“Baby, I haven’t even gotten started.” Gabriel grinned around the little white stick in the corner of his mouth and Jess giggled. She giggled. She hadn’t giggled since. Well, since she’d been with Sam. “It’s because you weren’t whole in Heaven. That and your parents wouldn’t know a sense of humor if it came up and poked them between the eyes.” 

“Don’t insult my parents, Gabriel. I love them.” Jess walks over to a door that is suddenly in one of the plain white walls and opens it to be greeted with a rather icy snowy scene outside. She slams the door shut again. Turning, her hands rubbing her arms, she walks back to Gabriel. “And what does Sam hunt?” She remembers how that conversation derailed and she wants to know. 

“Ghosts, demons, wendigos. He even Hunted me once.” Gabriel gets this look on his face and Jess blinks. 

“I, but. You’re not evil?” Jess takes a bite of the sandwich he handed her.

Gabriel looks at her with round eyes for a moment before bursting into laughter, throwing his head back. Jess runs a hand through her hair. 

“Jess, I was in hiding as a trickster God. Loki to be specific."

“I don’t-“

“Oh, don’t say you don’t believe it. A demon killed you after all and you've met me, it can't be too much of a stretch to believe in other pantheons.” Gabriel rolls his eyes. 

“But.. Sam?” Jess finally asks. 

“Was raised into hunting anything that wasn't human. And i'm not exactly an innocent cherub."

“So, they kill demons?” 

“Yeah and anything else that preys on humans. Ghosts, werewolves, ghouls."

“So why would Sam feel like he needed to kill you?” Angels were supposed to be good, helpful beings. Warriors of God and protectors of humanity.

“Because I might have had the illusion of a college girl throw a professor out of his thirteenth floor window.” He leans towards her and whispers “He used sexual favors from college girls to award good grades,” as if it were shocking. “And I made a sports bully slow dance with an alien.” He pauses, tapping his chin and then grins. “Oh! And an abuser fall into a sewer and get eaten by an alligator.”

“Oh.” Jess frowns “But aren’t Sam and Dean killing people too?” 

“Exactly! But they tried to kill me anyways. Staked me and everything.” 

“How are you still alive?”

“It’d take a lot more than a wooden stake to kill me!” Gabriel grins.


	4. Chapter 4

“Please.” Jess stared out the window at the blustering snow. 

“No,” Gabriel says from where he’s lying in the corner, feet up on the wall, tossing skittles into the air and catching them with his mouth. 

“Fine. I don’t need your permission. I’m a twenty one year old woman, I can do it without you.” 

“See if I care,” is the response. Oh the fury of that. She opens her mouth to accuse him of…something but closes it again. No matter that she is, in fact, dependent on this celestial being for the time being. There is no car, no public transit, no phone to call a taxi (and, honestly, she isn’t sure where she is. Alaska, but where in Alaska is less clear). 

She has to listen to Gabriel talking out loud to himself (he does that a lot, she’s noticed) and continue to flip through the National Enquirer. Perfect example of abuse of archangel powers right there, Jess decides. He’d snapped it up and when she’d seen the title she had had to ask. His response had been rather..befuddling, that he got his best ideas from it. And apparently reading her mind had then told her to ask Sam when she finally got to him. It had already been a couple days that had felt like a lifetime. They’d done nothing in this tiny room and she was bored out of her mind. 

Well, bored out of her mind except when she tried to leave and then Gabriel snapped his fingers and she was back to square one. 

The window, however, was now open. But for Gabriel’s word that they were in the middle of bumfuck Alaska, she would think they were somewhere near a beach on the Pacific Ocean. Where as two minutes ago, the window had been closed and they’d been in a snow storm. It’s only a few minutes later that Gabriel blinks out for a second so she takes a chance and climbs through the window. “Bam, you’re dead.” Gabriel was standing in front of her hand out, finger pointing at her with it… smoking as if it were a gun. She glanced down and her clothes were still whole, there were no tell tale signs of blood. 

“What the hell, Gabriel,” Jess frowns. 

“Oh, that was just your standard escape attempt. By the way, B minus"

“B minus!” Jess stares at him. “I’ve never gotten below a B+ in my life.”

“You just did. B- on your attempt to leave. Most people would've failed. I’m proud, you’re picking this up quickly.” Gabriel smiles. “Also, you will never find Sam if you leave before I say you’re ready.”

“You can’t do that!” Jess protests. 

“I brought you back from the dead,” Gabriel counters. “I know what Sam’s life is like and I don’t want to have to constantly resurrect you.”

A book appeared the next morning by the bed she’d slept in called a “Beginner’s guide to Ghosts.” Picking it up, she flipped the cover open as she sat on the edge of the bed. The author was conspicuously absent.

“Can’t have an author if no one wrote it,” Gabriel’s voice singsongs. 

“Get off the ceiling, showoff.” Jess walking over to the table where pancakes were steaming hot and drenched in syrup. He has a tendency to put too much sugar on everything but otherwise the pancakes are perfect. Gabriel continued to stand on the ceiling, acted as if she’s enthralled with what he’s saying: something about how he once stuck his brother between the cellular walls of an anemone in the South Pacific. 

The author was still blank but there were words on the page. “Gabriel did you write this?”

“Told you, no author. But I did think it into being so that is my perspective on Ghosts. Sam thinks of them slightly differently.”

“Like how?”

“Oh, this way and that. You’ll figure it out.” Gabriel waves a hand and Jess thinks it’s meant to be the human motion of dismissing a topic but it looked rather more celestial, as if he’s waving a being out of existence. How many times has he done that? Why did he bring her back? “What happened to you and Sam?” Not to mention the part where an Archangel got together with a human being in the first place.

“This and that, we had a difference in opinions.” Gabriel was standing on the ground again, his expression innocent, but there’s a hardness behind it. 

“Yeah, sure.” Jess says. “Obviously you don’t want to tell me, but I should warn you. I’m very good at weaseling information out of people.”   
“Good thing I’m not a person or a people.” Gabriel doesn’t even look at her from where he’s now sprawled in a chair. “I’m an archangel. Definitively not human.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Where are we?” She asks as she stares at the old time-y cars lined up along the street. 

“Lawrence, Kansas," gabriel sing songs. Jess frowns. He smirks at her and she looks around again

"Why does it look like we're in That 70s Show?" 

“I thought you'd like it." Jess rolls her eyes. She continues to look around. The newspaper dangling off the park bench says 1979. 

“What the hell are we doing in 1979?” It feels like there’s a jolt of electricity traveling up her spine and flowing out of her hair. 

“Where’s Sam from?” 

“Why aren’t you answering my questions,” Jess almost wails. She had wanted to come back to live her life with Sam but it feels like she’s come back to entertain a bored archangel and the world might be a completely different place but she doesn’t know because she hasn’t seen any of it because of said Archangel. Except now she was in 1979.

“Why aren’t you answering mine? And calm down.” Gabriel snarks. 

“We’re in 1979.” Jess hisses, gesturing wildly. 

“And?” 

Something clicks in Jess’ brain as she recalls Gabriel’s earlier words floating through her head. Where was Sam from? He said he’d moved around as a child, but he’d been born in- Lawrence Kansas. Ah. “Why are we here? Sam’s not born yet.” 

“This diner has fantastic ice cream smoothies,” is Gabriel’s only answer before he saunters in. She hurries after him; she doesn’t want to get stuck in 1979, after all. Gabriel is sitting at the counter, so she slides onto the stool next to him and drums her fingers on the formica. A burger and fries are placed in front of her in a basket and it’s rather embarrassing how quickly she inhales half the fries and several large bites of the burger. 

When the bell jangles over the door she starts; it’s disconcerting to have other people around. This time it’s a young man with a shock of dark brown hair holding a small baby and a shorter blonde woman who is chattering and smiling up at him. She blinks, they’re familiar somehow, as if she’s seen them before but never talked to them. 

“…I don’t know what we’re going to do, John. It’s like Dean is trying to torture us with lack of sleep.” 

John. Dean. If Gabriel’s taken here, the blonde woman must be Mary, Sam’s mother. Well, right now she’s just Dean’s mother. Jess is up and following them before she realizes what’s happening until she realizes how odd it must look and she swerves off and heads for the ladies’ room. Sitting in the stall she clutches her head in her hands, trying to figure out what Gabriel wants her to do here, why he brought them here. Even though he’s been random about it, he’s been very much focused on making sure that everything she’s done has taught her something, shown her something about the world that she didn’t already know. 

Maybe Gabriel just wants her to get to know them. Taking that thought she gets up and leaves the bathroom, not thinking about the fact that she’s going to meet Sam’s mom, or his dad. His dad was alive, but she knew his mom had died young. 

She walks up to their table, but its as if she's invisible. "Why can't they see me?"   
" because it would be too much trouble to fix if you fucked something up in their timeline."  
"Than why am I here?"   
"You never got a chance to see how and why Sam grew up the way he did." 

She blinks and they're in a room in a home. Mary looks a couple years older and Dean is a toddler now. There's a baby in the crib. Time seems to fast forward, Gabriel's not giving her a chance to react, to wonder. Instead, she sees her worst memory coming to life with Sam's mother on the ceiling, blood dripping and John screaming her name as she bursts into flames. A blink and she and Gabriel are standing on a darkened street, sirens a faint noise in the distance. 

“Well, Lawrence Kansas is boring place. How about we blow this popsicle joint?” Gabriel’s hands are tucked into his jacket pockets as he stands there, golden eyes unfathomable.

“And go where?” Jess thinks she might throw up.

“Have you ever seen the Great Wall of China?” 

“I’ve never left the United States,” Jess says honestly. 

“Perfect. Let’s go,” Gabriel says and snaps. She’s in China and it’s dark. “Oh.” Gabriel says as Jess flails around. “I forgot about that tiny problem.” 

“Tiny?!” She wails. “I can’t see anything.” 

“No lights, we can fix this!” Gabriel snaps and with another click, a flashlight turns on and Jess catches a glimpse of Gabriel’s avid face before the beam of light is squarely in her face, blinding her. 

"What the hell was that?" She whispers a few minutes later as they’re leaning against the turret. 

"That was what caused Sam to grow up as a hunter."

"So, wait, I was killed because of Sam."

“Yes.” Gabriel states this without preamble and she muffles a sob with her fist. "If it helps, Dean killed the demon who orchestrated it." 

"Well, that's the best thing I’ve heard all day." Jess thumps a fist against her knee, her blood cold as ice as the anger takes over.

"Look, you died. Sam was heartbroken and went back into hunting. But he makes the world a safer place and you're here again. So let's just enjoy it while we can, alright?" Jess nods and lets him draw her up to stand by the edge of the wall. 

“Gabriel, this is astonishing!” She cries with a wobbly smile. Even while dark, she can start to make out pin pricks of light and the vague shape of the wall as it slopes along in the distance. 

“It’s better with the sun shining down on it,” Gabriel says as he looks out on the scene. 

Jess pauses, glancing at him. “You’re an archangel, can’t you see no matter the conditions?” 

“Well, yeah, but it’s better in the sun. Trust me.” Gabriel says. 

“Gabriel, what happened to your family of angels? Don’t they love you?”

“Oh, they love me, they just don’t generally as a group like me. You see, I may or may not have abandoned them.” Gabriel says. “Besides, they’re a bunch of self righteous dicks with steel rods in their spines. Except Castiel.” There’s a pause and Jess leans against the stone, trying to study Gabriel’s face but still not able to see beyond dark shadows. “Well, actually, especially Castiel, but he’s figured out how to use the steel rod.” Gabriel snickers at his own joke and Jess rolls her eyes

A rock shifts and before Jess has time to even process that, there’s a crumbling and she finds herself falling sideways until she feels a hand grasp her ankle and she’s dangling, head down, her tangled blonde hair floating below her. She screeches and flails, trying to figure out what to do. Gabriel’s grasp on her ankle is strong and she trusts him, but she’s upside down and the only reason she’s not falling to her death (again?) is a hand around her ankle. “Would you quit shimmying around Jess? You’re making it harder to pull you up!” As if he really didn’t have supernatural strength or couldn’t pull her by sheer force of will alone. 

“Fine, what’s keeping you, anyways?” After a moment she’s pulled up fluidly, landing in Gabriel’s arms. Which is awkward, since she might be slightly taller than him. Her left hand is on his shoulder and her right tucked into her side. “Um.”

“Well, never thought I’d get a chance to carry you bridal style,” Gabriel says with a grin, a flash of something in his eyes and something in Jess’ stomach twitches. 

She rolls her eyes. “Stop making like hauling me up was some big deal for you. You can stand on the ceiling. I’m pretty sure pulling me up from falling was rather like blinking.”

“Well, sure, go ahead, piss all over my impressive feat. See if I care,” Gabriel lets her down gently still and Jess knows he’s not mad.


	6. Chapter 6

Jess was reading the book on ghosts that Gabriel had blinked into existence for her. Currently, it was talking about ghosts’ creation from humans as they refused to leave Earth. She was positive that the anecdotes in here were specifically written for her. Her grandparents as examples of individuals who had died in their sleep and had moved on without a thought. But it also mentioned Dean Winchester had lingered, had fought moving onward, had not wanted to die but neither had he wanted to become a malevolent spirit. 

“Gabriel?” She speaks to the empty room, testing the theory that he could probably hear her no matter what. 

“What’s happening, baby cakes?” Gabriel is leaning against the door, lollypop dangling out of his mouth. 

“Don’t call me that,” Jess gets up, stretching, enjoying the pull of muscles as she shifts from side to side. “Can you take me on a ghost hunt?” 

“No.” Gabriel is looking at her, much more carefully now. 

“Why not?” She is frustrated. Moving from where she’s standing towards Gabriel. “I’ve been reading all about ghosts and I could use some hands on experience!” 

“Why not?” Gabriel says. “You're not ready. You've almost died several times. I could bring you back again," he paused. “Probably.” 

“What does this have to do with hunting a ghost?” She waves the book in his face. There’s a thump as it hits the opposing wall without her having moved a muscle to do. 

“Everything!” his voice booms, resplendent with Angelic Grace. When she blinks, she finds herself stumbling back, cowering like a fool. 

“I-I’m sorry,” she whispers, vocal chords not cooperating with her and not allowing her to talk back. Adrenaline courses through her and she refused to acknowledge it as fear. Terror. 

“Me too,” Gabriel is kneeling by her and Jess wrinkles her brow, slanting her gaze over at him. That is completely unlike him, coming to her level when he’s cowed her down. “I think if we went on a hunt right now, I’d have to burn the soul out. I think it would be better for you to try something when you have skills in self defense. I’m not always going to be here to rescue you.”

“And when are you going to teach me those?” Anger laces her voice. 

“Soon,” is his only response. 

“Why can’t you just zap the information into my brain?” Jess flops against the wall and Gabriel settles next to her. 

“I have.” Gabriel responds. “But you can’t use them yet.”

All Jess can do is frown again. “Why?”

“Because… well, human brains weren’t built to accept and acclimatize new information like that and well, I don’t want to fry your brain.”


	7. Chapter 7

“You complete and total idiot, I don’t know what Sam ever saw in you. I should send you right back to Heaven. I was so blinded by Sam and his idolization of you that I failed to see what an oblivious bratty self absorbed amoeba you are.”

Gabriel is pacing in front of her, occasionally pointing a finger in her direction. Jess has her hands folded in her lap, long curls (that are currently tangled and covered in ectoplasm) falling in her face. The scrape along her side is screaming, throbbing in time to her heart beat as it thunders through her head. 

“And don’t bother asking me to heal you. You need to learn that what I say goes and obviously you’ll have to learn the hard way.” He’s furious but Jess takes small comfort in the fact that she’s not dead. Yet.

Now is also not the time to talk back, pointing out that no matter how many times he reiterates that he is an angel and has lived far longer than she could ever hope to and is, therefore, wiser, she has free will. 

Now is not the time. Now is not the time. Now is not the time. “Why can’t I see Sam yet?” 

Well, she probably shouldn’t have said that either. Especially not with the look he’s just turned on her. 

And then she’s in an empty motel room faced with her own thoughts to keep here company. 

Sam. It hurts, when she thinks about it. She’d thought dying was the worst thing to happen but now? Now that she knows Sam lost his mother the same way he lost her. She can’t even begin to imagine what that might be like. Having Gabriel show her how his mom died, it made her wonder just how rough Sam’s life must have been before he’d come to Stanford. It hurts and she wishes he were there, wishes she could find her way to him. 

She steps outside to be greeted by stale cigarette smoke and blaring semi’s horns as they roll down the exit ramp. 

She’s pretty sure geographically she’s not very far from where she'd tried to hunt the ghost. There’s not much going on but it’s better than sitting in the motel room. In the motel reception she sees an older woman interrogating the skeletal hotel clerk she vaguely remembers from when Gabriel was whammying him into giving them a room. She sidles over to where she sees a haphazard pile of magazines. They might have some relevant information for her. Maybe. The magazines were either drivel about local celebrities or-perhaps better, a National Enquirer. “Jessica Moore, what are you doing hiding in the corner? Honey, we was just talkin’ about you.” 

Jess blinks and stares at the woman. “Who are you?” She finally asks, shifting towards the door.

“Oh, how rude of me. My name’s Missouri. I’ve known Sam and Dean a good spell though they haven’t dropped by in years. I just knew you were in town so I had to drop by.”

“So I’m in Lawrence?” Jess asks. 

“Or there abouts. A couple miles out but nothing so far as to be the next town over.” Missouri waves a hand and smiles. 

“How did you know my name?” She backs towards the door the older woman following her every step. Jess really doesn’t want to call Gabriel, not when she’s managed to so thoroughly piss him off. 

"Honey, you're all Sam could think about last time I saw him.” Missouri smiles at her and she edges away. "Why don't you and I sit down and chat a bit?” 

He still hasn’t taught her how to defend herself. She really wishes he would, she doesn’t know why he hasn’t yet. “Um, maybe some other time,” 

She fumbles with the door and bolts outside only to not know where to go. If she holes up in her room, she wonders if this… person could find a way in after her. 

“Oh honey, I’m not here to hurt you. You’re here for a reason and I wanted to meet the young lady that Sam was so distraught over the last time we met.” She’s standing there looking about as threatening as a fly but Jess isn’t about to betray Gabriel again, no matter what she feels about how he’s been acting or how in the wrong he was. 

“We stay out in public.”

“Oh that’s quite alright sugar. I just want to know how a sweet thing like you is back from the dead is all.” Missouri gestures back inside. "Now can we go inside? My knees aren't what they used to be and I’d be very grateful." 

“How are you getting your information?” Jess scowls. 

“I’m what you might call a psychic. The Lord felt fit to give me the ability to See. I could sense you the moment you appeared in Lawrence. Although you came by unconventional methods.”

“You could say that,” Jess murmurs as she tears apart a piece of paper.

“Girl, if you pretended to be human just to rip out poor Sam Winchester’s heart, shame on you.” Jess backs away slowly, wishing she had something, anything to defend herself with. Much as she may not relish the consequences, an angry Gabriel with her alive is far better than an angry Gabriel who has had to bring her back from the dead again. Gabriel, please. Gabriel I don’t know what to do. 

“She’s all human,” The drawling voice sends relief shooting through her and she slumps down as Missouri steps to the side. “I, however, am not.” 

Hands slung into his pockets, hair calm again and expression blank, he’s radiating power. 

“Well now,” Missouri drawls. “So you aren’t. I can see now why Jess here suddenly came on my radar. Who are you?”

“I’m not sure you’d believe me,” Gabriel grins and Jess remembers he’s trickster, not just an angel. 

“Oh, I’ve seen many things in my life time, honey, one more thing won’t break me. Besides, Jess here wants to see her Sam. I can help with that.”

“I know exactly where Sam is. And you should be worried that you can’t tell what I am.” It’s like Gabriel knows exactly who he’s dealing with, knows what she’ll do, what she can and can’t see. Maybe he does. 

“Well, why don’t you tell me?” Missouri says. 

“Inside the motel room,” Gabriel raises his hand and Jess braces herself and a half second later she finds herself back in her motel room. 

“Oooh, I don’t appreciate that young man. Never move someone without their permission,” Missouri’s voice is thick with irritation. 

“He’ll never listen to that,”Jess breaks in, fear for her life having faded with Gabriel’s presence. “Gabriel's one of the most stubborn beings I’ve ever met.” 

“So your name is Gabriel,” Missouri drawls. “Like the archangel.” 

“Not like,” Gabriel corrects, smirk firmly in place. “I am the archangel.” 

“Well then, I don’t suppose you had anything to do with torturing my poor Sam and Dean.” Her voice is hard, as if she’d already known he was an angel.

“I died for them.” Is his only response. 

“Did you now?” Missouri arches a brow, settling down on the bed. “Well, that certainly changes things.”

“How?” 

“Means we’re on the same side after all,” Missouri smiles and Jess sinks into the arm chair relieved. Well, perhaps not relieved. But some of her tension had left and she found herself wanting to ease the pain that had crept back into her awareness. The soft moan of pain that escaped drew her a sharp glance from Missouri. 

“Are you hurt, Jessica?”

Jess shakes her head. She’s not mortally wounded and she would rather like to savor the wounds, feel what it’s like to be a hunter. 

“Oh stop lying honey. If you’re an archangel, why aren’t you working a little miracle on this sweet young woman.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t call her sweet if you knew what she did. She’s learning from her mistake.” Gabriel is staring stonily at Missouri who only raises an eyebrow. He caves and snaps his fingers. Her pain is very suddenly gone and she straightens. 

“I didn’t- I don’t want- Why?” She finally asks.

“Do you want a seer’s wrath looking in your direction?” Is Gabriel’s only response. He’s still not looking at her. 

“Oh, honey, lets get this all out in the open.” 

“She nearly got herself killed because she was dumb enough to go to a ghost hunt without proper training.”

“And why did you do this?” Missouri looks at her and she feels like maybe she’s not looking at her in judgment but simply wants an explanation. 

“I wanted to see what a hunt was like.” She forces herself to stop twirling her hair. 

“Why are you so eager to get into the life your loved ones want to escape so badly?” 

Jess looks up, the plural ringing in her ears. The only person she truly loved who was currently alive was Sam. “Because then I could see Sam.” 

“Oh, honey. Gabriel’s afraid you’re not ready.”

“Not ready for what?” Jess asks. “He won’t tell me anything.” She glares at him. 

Gabriel blinks at her and then blinks out of existence. Jess throws her hands into the air and glares at where he’d been. “See? Any time I ask him questions. Any time, that’s pretty much the response.” 

Gabriel pops back into existence a minute later and Missouri jumps. He’s holding a rather large old book that looks as if it might fall apart if she so much as touches it. 

“What is that?” She gestures towards the book. 

“This old thing?” Gabriel scoffs. “It’s only the guide to how to convince a young impressionable girl that she’s going to be the mother of Jesus Christ. There was a guide because God had a plan.” Gabriel drops the book on the table and Jess can’t help but to try and get a closer look. It’s leather bound and all the papers are yellowed and crackling. “There is no guide for what we’re doing here, so excuse me for not telling you what’s next becauset I don’t know what’s next.” Gabriel’s lips are thin and he’s breathing erratically, as if he’s forgotten how to control his breathing. 

“I don’t care! Just tell me what you’re doing and why.” Jess shouts. “I get that this is weird. You think I don’t? You think I think people come back from the dead as gifts from archangels to their ex boyfriends? You think I’m not freaked out that Sam was with someone like you?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Don’t you dare insult Sam and my relationship!” Gabriel thunders. Jess stares down at him. 

“Well what the hell am I supposed to do? I don’t even know how you met him!” Jess pokes Gabriel in the chest. “I have no idea how Sam would even have talked to an archangel! What the hell was he doing that caught your attention?”

“Oh, I don’t know that you want to go down that route.” Gabriel’s voice turns smooth as silk and Jess shivers, nerves aflame, jittery. 

“Fine. Then tell me why he’s not dating you anymore,” Jess snaps. “You know what? On second thought, don’t.” She stomps to the door, slamming it behind her and throws herself down on the bench by the check in lobby. 

Missouri sits down next to her a moment later, says nothing but Jess can feel her shifting, hear her sighs like little whisps of regret. She huffs a breath of her own, feeling the first tendrils of guilt reaching, bubbling through her gut. “I’m sorry,”

“What for, sweet heart?” 

“For putting you through that,” Jess says, looking down at her hands which are suddenly enclosed in larger warm hands of Missouri. 

“Oh, don’t you worry your pretty head about it a minute. You think I ain’t heard worse?” Jess shrugs, shrinking into herself. “Well, let me tell ya, you try raisin’ boys what don’t believe in God and can’t agree one one little eensy thing. Then we’ll talk about me hearin’ worse ’n that.” 

“I just talked back to an archangel.” Jess says, voice about as big as she feels at the moment. 

“Well, no way around it, you did, but he didn’t smite you, did he?”

“No.” Jess says. “I’d know if he did, after all.”

“You would,” Missouri looks at her, solemn and quiet. Jess’ lips quirk and she finds herself giggling. 

“My life is nothing like what I pictured for myself,” she finally finds air to say. “Why am I telling you all this?”

“I find that life usually goes the way you least expect. And if it does go the way you expect, it’s boring.” Missouri smiles at her. “Now, it kinda sounds like you been holed up with that archangel back there a mite too long. I know you don’t know me, but,” She takes out a notebook writes something on it and hands her the torn out sheet folded up. Jess stares at the paper in her hands. “That’s my phone number, you call anytime.” 

“Ok,” Jess says. “Thank you.”

“Well, sugar, I do have to get goin’ Stop by for tea anytime, you hear now?” 

Jess nods. “Yes ma’am. Thank you.” 

“Just ask Sam where to find me. Somethin’ tells me you’ll be seein’ him soon enough.”


	8. Chapter 8

“Up and at ‘em!” Jess rolls sleepily onto her back. Raising her head, she can see Gabriel, if she squints. 

“Umph,” She manages before shifting, rolling up to sit in the motel bed, sheets fallen to her waist. “Gabriel, wh-what are you doing?” 

Gabriel is flitting around the room, cheery energy practically exploding from him. She watches as he paces for a few moments, but his energy pulls at her and she has to get out of bed and wake up. “Mnngh, I can’t do your whatever this is." she waves a hand in his general direction. she's not even sure he hears her. "I’ll be in the bathroom.” She stumbles her way in, shutting the door quietly behind her, completely ignoring Gabriel munching on a cookie, somehow whistling through the crumbs in his mouth. 

When she’s done and opens the door again, there’s a giant balloon in her face, surrounded by other balloons. She bats them away and pushes her way back into the motel room. Gabriel’s standing there, muffins in hand. He offers one. “Here, it’s blueberry, your favorite.”

“Thanks?” Jess plucks it from his hand, taking a bite. It’s steaming, as if it were just out of the oven. “This is perfect, Gabriel.”

“Look. I was thinking, you might’ve been right last night.” Gabriel isn’t looking at her and Jess lets him. Apparently she isn’t the only one feeling guilty. 

“It’s ok,” Jess offers quietly. “I, Missouri talked to me last night and, I was thinking later and um, it’s hard to remember exactly who you are sometimes.” 

“What?” Gabriel splutters. Jess turns back towards him, curiosity vibrating through her. 

“What?” She mimics. 

“Yeah, ok, I’m Gabriel but I thought.. Well, we’re friends, right?” He is tentative, far less confident than usual and Jess wishes she could wipe the unsure expression off his face. It doesn’t belong there. 

“We are?” Those aren’t the words she wanted to say. “I mean, of course we are!” Jess says, plastering a smile on her face. 

“I see.” Gabriel’s shoulders slump. 

“No, it’s ok, Gabriel. Don’t go!” Jess reaches out, grabs his arm. “I just, you’re an archangel. Why would you want to be friends with me?” 

Gabriel rolls his eyes. “Why wouldn’t I?” he says, pausing and then looking right at her. “Look, you’re beautiful. You’re kind and funny and you’re daring. When I saw you in heaven, I wasn’t sure what Sam saw in you, but now? Now I’m seeing it and, well, I died for humanity once, might as well make friends with 'em too, right?” 

“You.. You died for humanity?” 

“Well, I didn’t exactly go hide in heaven when Lucy stuck his angel knife in me,” he responds. 

Jess blinks. “I, you died?” She says again, feeling like an idiot, he’d said as much yesterday and she hadn’t somehow picked up on it then. 

“I already told you this. Sam and Dean were fighting Lucifer and I helped them escape his clutches and what did I get for trouble? A whole lotta dead.” Gabriel brushes fingers down his sleeve. 

Jess shakes her head and grabs him to sit on the bed. Crossing her legs indian style she faces him. He’s studying the comforter, an action that is both so like him and unlike him that she rather wants to burst into tears. “Tell me about it,” she orders. 

“Why would you want to know?” Gabriel looks up, curiousity sparking in his golden eyes. 

“Because…” Jess questions herself, why does she want to know? They are friends, she supposes, but; here are no buts. “Because you’re my friend and it sounds to me like your own brother murdered you in cold blood.”

“That’s about the truth of it,” Gabriel says, snapping up a lollipop, grin in place. “Old Lucy never did like anyone standing up to him. His way or the highway, you know.”

“So they say,” Jess half smiles. 

“Yeah, well, when we were young, when the universe was young, he was my,” Gabriel trails off, eyes unfocused before shaking out of it. “He was my everything in some ways. Not in the incestuous way, curb your dirty human mind,” he slants a glance at her and she giggles. He grins back at her, his familiar humor and confidence seeping back into his posture, despite the topic at hand. “Lucifer was the Morningstar. He was bright; he was passionate. He had a wicked sense of humor and you probably haven’t seen enough other angels, but most of ‘em are pretty much robots. Humor doesn’t come naturally to us. Well. Except me and Lucy.” Gabriel shrugs. “Castiel’s learning, but he’s been almost human, so maybe he doesn’t count.” Gabriel grins as he thinks of Castiel. “Course he’s been through hell and he’s-I think he’s in purgatory right now.” 

“With Dean, right?” 

“Yes, Sam’s brother. He could never let Dean go. Loves him too much.” Gabriel adds. Jess blinks. 

“But-Dean, he came on to me when I met him the once. And-“

“Oh he’s totally oblivious, sleeps with anything with a pulse, but, there’s something there. If we ever get ‘em out of purgatory, trust me, you’ll see what I mean.” 

“Huh,” Jess frowns. She shrugs. “You’re diverting the subject, Gabriel. Tell me more about your death.”

“Fine, you humans and your bones.” Gabriel rolls his eyes and huffs.

“Almost as bad as angels and their desire to never speak of their family,” Jess smiles and pats Gabriel’s hand. “If it gets too bad, I’ll go get you a candy bar.” 

“Really?” Gabriel perks up.

“You and your sweets obsession. I don’t know what I’ll do with you.” Jess shakes her head, laughing. “What was Lucifer like? I mean, beyond just funny.” 

“He was amazing, second in command to Michael, always willing to play a prank on his brothers and sisters, kind and confident. He would teach me his ways, how to get around some of the rules of Heaven and Dad. Made sure I was always having fun.”

“He sounds…” Nothing at all like the devil, Jess thought to herself. “..like a wonderful older brother.” 

“He was,” Gabriel says simply. “The very best. He saw Me, taught me. he and i shared a lot, he could see my sense of humor. That I wanted to make my brothers and sisters laugh, that I enjoyed life. So he taught me everything he knew. Or at least I thought he did.” Gabriel trails off. “When Dad allowed life to evolve with humans, Lucifer couldn’t believe it. He’d thought Dad loved us all best but, well, he goes off and makes you guys and Lucifer flips his shit. I got it then. I don’t now. Stop giving me that look!” Gabriel protests and Jess realizes that she’s pushed herself away from Gabriel. 

“You were, it was the very first of humanity and we were like the older kids being thrown over for the new favorite. Most of us, including me, got used to it, saw that Dad still loved us, but Lucy didn’t. He kept throwing this temper tantrum and he just… sank deeper into the bits and pieces of him that weren’t light and good. It’s like he allowed his choices to eat his grace until it became this mangled ugly thing that hurts to touch.” 

“It can do that?” Jess asks. “Your Grace?”

“If you want it to. You have to want something so against Dad’s will though, that it mangles. It’s something most angels don’t know. I don’t think Castiel did. I just wish Dad was around.” 

“Is God missing?” Jess asks slowly. 

Gabriel laughs, dry and short. “Jess, he’s been missing for at least a millennia. No one knows what to do, it’s why Sam and Dean became my brothers’ true vessels.”

“What?” Jess asks, air whipping out of her lungs, leaving her gasping. 

“I forgot there’s so much you don’t know. Can we skip that and talk about it later?” Gabriel smiles. 

“How did Lucifer find it in himself to kill his brother?” She asks after a few moments. 

“Because I dared to tell him he was wrong. He’s lost all sympathy for anyone who doesn’t side with him.” Gabriel shakes his head, looking so alone that Jess leans into him, silently rearranging herself to offer what little warmth and comfort she can. He is hard and hot and unyielding, feels so unlike he looks until he shifts and suddenly he’s all soft corners melding against her and she sighs, knowing he just shifted his reality so that his Grace wasn’t bursting through his vessel as much anymore.


	9. Chapter 9

The gym is large, cavernous even and every time she moves, it feels rather like she’s trying push through mud. It’s empty of people, which, considering the air quality, isn’t particularly surprising. She’s also fairly sure that wherever they are, this gym doesn’t exist when Gabriel doesn’t want it to exist. 

“Are you finally teaching me self defense?” Jess asks, turning to look at her friend. 

“In a manner of speaking.” He’s looking up and she follows his gaze to see a bat that is bigger than a bat should ever be staring blindly down at her. It hisses and she screams and bolts for the desk she saw lurking in the corner. It’s one of those old desks, wooden with wooden drawers on either side but big, big enough that she might be able to hide in space where legs are supposed to go. She can feel the bat’s breath, can hear the air moving as it wings through the air and the syrup like feel of the air around her as she fights through it. Her only consolation is that the bat seems to be just as slowed down. 

She reaches the desk and crumples herself under it, pulling as far into it as possible. The dull thump and heavy vibration of the desk tells her that the bat has somehow landed on top of it. She curls into a tiny ball and eyes her surroundings, wondering why on earth Gabriel’s set a giant bat on her. 

“Well, it looks like you learned lesson one a long while ago.” Gabriel’s crouching at the edge of the desk, looking at her. “Of course, I think I already knew that but I needed to see it too.” 

“And what’s that?” She takes his hand and allows him to pull her out. 

“That if you come up against something you can’t handle and running and hiding is an option, you take that option.” Gabriel’s looking at her, all warrior angel. 

“I-“ Jess twists her lips. “Who wouldn’t?” She finally asks. 

“Sam, the huge idiot.” Gabriel shakes his head and Jess understands. She’d never seen that part of Sam, but something about the way he had acted, what she’d learned of his personality, she’s not surprised. 

“So, what’re we doing today?” Gabriel turns towards her. 

“We’re activating the knowledge I instilled in your body and mind when I resurrected you.”

“Wait, so, I already know how to defend myself, but you said...” 

"Trickster!" Gabriel grins. 

Jess holds out her hand, staring at it. She found it hard to believe she was already a killing machine. 

“Well, your body knows the motions and I need to.. Activate it in your brain.” Gabriel leans over and puts two fingers to her forehead. She blinks when nothing happens and stares at him. He stares back and then suddenly there are arms around her, grabbing her, pulling her backwards and she’s moving as if she’s been trained to fight ever since she was a small girl, an elbow to the gut, stepping on the instep, leaning back into the person rather than pulling away while digging her nails as far into the bare skin as possible. She throws her head back, skull cracking into the nose and uses the slight loosening of the arms to wrench herself free, turning around and kicking him in the shins followed by the kneed to the groin and slamming her arms down on his back. 

She stands there as the being, she’s pretty sure it’s a fascimile of a human being, is collapsed on the ground, arms splayed to the side. She can feel how heavily she’s breathing, like she’s run a marathon. 

“What’s stopping you?” Gabriel asks. “It’s just an illusion anyways,” he kicks out at the body and it rolls away from the touch. 

“Stopping me?” Jess asks. She turns to watch as Gabriel sighs and snaps his fingers, making the being disappear. 

“Yeah, you need to be able to kill.”

“I-he wasn’t trying to kill me, I can’t I don’t-“Jess fumbles. 

“Yes, it was. Obviously I wouldn’t have let it and you’re good, you’re really good. You need to be able to kill to protect yourself and others. Because when it comes down to it, it’s kill or be killed.” Gabriel crosses his arms. 

“I I don’t, I don’t know.” Jess hugs herself. “I’ve never, never thought of myself like that.” 

“Like what?”

“A killer. I can’t hurt spiders!” She’s backed up against a wall and sliding down. She puts a hand to her face and it comes away wet, tears coating her cheeks. 

Gabriel flops down next to her. “Hunters struggle with it, I think, but you’re not going to be killing humans. And they’re going to try and kill you or fuck with you in some way. And if you don’t kill them, innocent humans die, which might rest heavily on your conscience.”

Jess nods. She knows this, but part of her doesn’t know it yet. 

“How about this, tomorrow we’ll go on a hunt. Obviously you can defend yourself.” Gabriel hands her a mars bar and she unwraps it, biting into it, savoring the sweetness of the chocolate, focusing on it. 

“Ok.” She says. “But what if I panic?” She shoves the wrapper into her pocket. 

“Oh, I’m not letting you do the hunt. We’re going to find Bobby and he’s going to let us tag along on his hunt.” Gabriel says as if she’s supposed to know who Bobby is. 

“Who is that?” 

“An ass." Gabriel takes her hand and she laces her fingers through his as they disappear and reappear in another motel room. 

“Oh. Will he be ok with us tromping around after him?” Jess frowns. 

“He’ll understand eventually.” Gabriel pulls out a lolly pop sticking it in his mouth and speaking around it. “I got errands to run, I”ll see you tomorrow morning.” He disappears with the rustling of wings and Jess sighs, sitting back on the bed. It felt rather like she had failed a test but the teacher didn't care, was passing her along because he knew she knew the material. 

She calls Missouri. “Jess Moore, I’m so glad you’re calling.” 

Jess flops back on the bed. “Hi Missouri. How are you?”

“Oh, just fine. Had to tell a poor man news he didn’t want to hear. How is Gabriel treating you?”

“We’re going to Bobby’s?” She switches her phone around as she unties her shoes and pries them off. 

“Bobby’s a sweetheart. You’ll like him. Is he going to help you with the killing monsters part?” Missouri asks. 

“How- How did you know?” Jess asks after a moment. “Wait, don’t answer that.” Missouri laughs at her. “Do you- I-“

“Honey, you’ll get along in the world just fine no matter what happens. And you’ll find that as time goes on, well, you’ll see.” 

“Thanks Missouri.” Jess sighs a little. “I just, I’ve never failed at something I’ve tried to do!” 

“There’s always a first time, honey. Now, you tell Bobby Singer that if he ain’t nice to you that I’ll come for him.”

“Ok, Missouri. Thanks.”

“No trouble. I gotta go tend to a broken heart, so you call me again soon, ok?” 

“Will do,” Jess smiles as she hangs up.


	10. Chapter 10

She’s standing in an old living room that has piles of books, folders of looseleaf paper and a couple bottles of mostly empty whiskey sitting around. The wallpaper is musty and streaked with dark spots that could be dirt or mold (though judging by the smell, was probably both). The whole room is dark despite the fact that she can see it’s light out through the off white curtains. 

The sound of a rifle cocking startles her. “Raise your hands slowly and turn around.” The voice is growly, mean and low. She slowly turns; Gabriel is doing so as well. “Who the hell are you and how the hell did you get in here.” The man, who’s got an ugly ratty old hat with a grizzled salt n’ pepper beard and an old hunting vest on with a rifle at his shoulder, has gotten the drop on them, Jess realizes as she meets his steady gaze. 

“Bobby, you know you can’t keep me away, Why’d you want to try?” Gabriel is grinning. 

“Crowley?” Gabriel makes a face. 

“You’re making best buddies with the king of hell? I’m disappointed in you, Bobby.” Gabriel clucks his tongue, chastising the man who, going by appearances, should’ve been the elder. 

“Who the hell are you?” 

“Jeez, you're so forgetful” Gabriel says. “We need a favor. Considering you owe me, oh, about a bajillion favors,” 

“I don’t owe you shit,” the man growls and gestures with his rifle. Jess flinches. “Who are you,” he’s glaring at her now. 

“My name’s Jessica Moore,” she says, trying to keep her gaze clear and as confident as possible. 

“Bull,” is Bobby’s gruff answer. “That’s Sam’s girl who was killed eight years ago.”

“That’s all true, but I’m still her,” Jess says. “I don’t know what to say to prove it to you. I don’t know what you know about me, but Sam never mentioned you. ‘Course he never mentioned hunting in general. Told me his family was dysfunctional.” Jess can’t believe she’s not a snivelling mess at this point.

“Well then you tell me who the hell this is,” Bobby growls. She’s smart enough to realize the man doesn’t believe her. 

“Well if you’re a hunter, you’ve probably got all sorts of protection on your home. What aren’t you protecting against?” Jess asks. Because she’s fairly sure Gabriel just wants to mess with Bobby but neither can she just tell Bobby who Gabriel is. 

“Angels,” Bobby says turning back to Gabriel who’s smirking at this point. 

“Oh come on Bobby, I can’t believe it’s taking you this long,” Gabriel rolls his head around. “I mean, I’m offended, we met and everything. Well, sorta. I mean I did try to kill you with an axe murderer.” 

“You’re the trickster? Gabriel? You’re dead!” There’s a flash of pain on Gabriel’s face and Jess thinks she knows why. Sam. 

“I was dead,” Gabriel says with a grin firmly in place. “Now I’m not. Same goes for Jess here. I wanted to do something nice for Sam, owe him a favor or two and figured she was gonna be good enough to take away all favors I owe.” 

“Who the hell brought you back?”

“Uh, my Dad?” Gabriel says. “Mind lowering the rifle? You’re making Jess twitchy and I don’t really feel like bring Jess back to life again.” 

Bobby lowered the rifle, let them relax. It was obvious he knows gabriel's helped out in the past. She wondered if it has something to do with how he died.

Bobby runs them through a series of tests, silver, holy water, salt among others before he finally accepts what they’re saying as truth.

"Well, you idjits, just sit your asses down. Ain’t got all day.”

Jess practically collapses into the couch and Gabriel leans against it. “What do you want from me?” He finally asks, having poured himself a thumb full of whiskey into a glass and shooting it back. 

“What don’t we want from you?” Gabriel grins. Jess frowns up at him. 

“Stop baiting, Gabriel,” she mutters. 

“Fine. I need to make sure Jess here is ready to integrate into a hunting lifestyle. She needs to learn to hunt.”

“What, So Sam’s girl came back to hunt?” Bobby snorts.

“I came back for Sam!” Jess protests

“So what’s with the huntin’? And why can’t Gabriel here teach you?” 

“I have a… distaste for killing things apparently,” Jess admits. Bobby snorts, looks at her for a moment.

“Well how the hell do I know you won’t.. Zombiefie on me?” 

“I haven’t..” She raises her fingers to quote, “zombiefied yet?” 

“She’s alive, whole and complete. I got her soul from Heaven and re-built her body from the earth. Bobby, sometimes I think you forget what angels are capable of.” 

“Fine. Shit. You can come. I was gonna go salt n’ burn a ghost a couple hours from here this afternoon. I guess you can come with. In the meantime, you’re on phone duty.” Jess nods. 

***

Bobby appears in the doorway to the room Jess is standing in, small tool bag in hand, making sure she has everything. “Let’s go.” He stomps out of the door and Jess follows, glancing back at Gabriel who seems disinclined to move. He waves her off, which she takes to mean that she’s on her own, going with the gruff older man. He’s sitting in a pick up truck and she climbs up into it. 

“Where’s this ghost?” she asks as they rumble down the driveway. “Where are we, anyways?” 

“You don’t even know where you’re at?” Bobby harrumphs. “Boy don’t even tell you where he takes ya?”

“Gabriel’s older than you,” Jess says. “And no, not usually. I guess he thinks it’s good for me to constantly try and figure things out on my own. Probably good for to learn how to be a hunter, always question things.” 

“He’s an ass,” Bobby growls. “Just like most a’ his brothers and sisters.”

“You’ve met other angels?” Bobby glances at her and she remembers the earlier conversation. “Oh. Yeah. Right. Sorry, stupid question. Which angels have you met?” 

“Sometimes it feels like a better question to ask would be which I haven’t met yet.” Bobby snorts and shakes his head. Now that he knows who Gabriel is, Jess is surprised he’s accepted her as well. She has to wonder how many people he’s met who’ve been resurrected. It hadn’t seemed like a common thing in heaven. “Castiel mostly,” Bobby says as he fiddles with the air conditioner. “But Balthazar too. Those were the nice ones. Uriel was a pain in the ass and Anna didn’t deserve what she got but she turned eventually, tried to kill Sam and Dean’s ma,” 

“What?!” Jess yelps. “Gabriel didn’t show me that.” Jess trails off into silence and Bobby is looking at her appraisingly. 

“Gabriel do the time jump too?” He finally asks. She nods. “Think Dean an’ Sam said somethin’ ‘bout Michael wiping their memories. Might be Gabriel didn’t want to show how off the rails his brothers and sister had gone.”

Jess nods quietly. She wonders who Gabriel’s wearing, how long the man’s been stuck like that. “What’s Sam like now?” She finally asks. 

Bobby’s silent for a few minutes as they thunder down the highway. “He’s… probably a lot different from how you remember him.” The words are quiet, hesitant for a man who’s so gruff. “Boy’s made a lotta stupid mistakes, been an idjit more times ’n I can count.” 

“What was his biggest one?” Jess asks. 

Bobby snorts. “Easy, lettin’ old Lucifer outta his cage back a couple years ago. Jump started the apocalypse because he thought some demon girl was on his side, wasn’t like other demons. Lead him around by his di-Got him addicted to demon blood so he didn’t know which was up anymore.” Jess curls her legs up onto the bench and stares out the window. 

“Don’t think he ever really got over you, not wholly.” Bobby adds looking at her. “He doesn’t say much but he was still messed up over it a year later when I saw him.” 

Jess nods. She doesn’t like hearing about Sam’s prolonged grief; she feels guilty since part of her is glad of this grief both Bobby and Missouri have mentioned. “Ok,” She finally says. She takes a deep breath before continuing. “He let Lucifer out of hell?” 

“There you go, asking the right question five minutes later,” Bobby says. “And yeah. He and Dean started the apocalypse, broke the right seals and then set it right eventually. Sam ended up in hell for a year.” 

“I-he-what?” Jess finally asks. 

“We’re here,” Bobby says instead. The truck slows to a stop and he gets out, taking the rifle, the gas and lighter. Jess lets herself out, tucking her hair back and following him with a flashlight and a shovel into the darkened cemetery. She feels a cold weight appear in her boot and she leans down to find a knife tucked into her boot where there had been none. Knowing it was Gabriel looking out for her, she follows Bobby, flashlight bobbing as she stumbles over the grass. He’s walking with surety and stops most of the way into the cemetery in front of an old gravestone. 

“So, what do we do now?”

“Dig it up, burn the bones.” 

“Where was it haunting?” Jess asks. 

“House nearby, where he died.” Bobby “Scaring the shit outta the family who just moved in.” 

“Oh,” Jess says. “What did it do?”

“Tried to kill the kid. Lucky they’re smart enough and got ‘emselves outta the house.” Bobby shrugs. 

Jess shudders and watches as Bobby hurls himself into digging up the grave. 

It’s not a romantic process. It’s boring and it’s too much effort to talk, so they work in silence because even when Jess is digging, she can’t speak and Bobby’s keeping an eye out for the ghost catching on to what they’re doing. 

It doesn’t. Jess decides that hunting is boring sometimes.


	11. Chapter 11

“So! How’d it go, little huntress?” Gabriel’s drinking what has to be the girliest drink ever with a little parasol sticking out of the glass. 

“Boring,” Jess says. “I’m fucking exhausted,” She could sleep for a day and a half, she thinks. Falling back on the sofa, she watches as Bobby trundles back to his desk, pouring himself another glass of the whiskey and sipping at it as he leans back in his office chair that creaks as if it were about to fall apart and kicks his feet up on the one empty part of his desk. 

“Well hunting isn’t all guns and fireworks. Coulda told you that myself, saved you the trouble of coming along.”

“I know,” Jess says. “Glad it’s not, really.” She yawns and her hand closes around a hot ceramic mug. Looking down at the just appeared mug, it’s a dark brown and smells chocolatey. “Mm, thanks Gabe.” She shares a smile with the angel and Bobby harrumphs. Even if he doesn’t like Gabriel, he seems to trust him.

He barely seems to trust her, but Jess probably represents a lot of what Sam lost when he came back to hunting. She’s a part of the hunting world now and it occurs to her to wonder how Sam will react. She’s been so focused on seeing him, she hasn’t given much thought to what it might be like for him. He’s spent eight years without her, he’s obviously had other lovers, he’s done so much, made so many mistakes, saved so many lives that he’s going to be so different from what she remembers of the happy boy who gets too focused on his school work and just loves her like no other. 

“Why’d you come back, Gabriel?” Bobby finally asks as they sit in his dark room. She's nursing a glass of brandy and Gabriel has a margarita he snapped up. Bobby had snorted at the two of them, pouring a thumb full of rotgut into a glass. 

“My Dad.” Gabriel’s finished with his sweet drink and is now working his way through a different colored drink. Jess is pretty sure it doesn’t have much of an effect on him. 

“Yeah, but why?” Bobby’s glaring at him.

“No clue,” Gabriel shrugs. “Have you talked to God? Has he told you what he’s on about?” Gabriel snarks. “Because I’m his messenger and he hasn’t told me.” 

Bobby sips on his whiskey again. “And when exactly were you plannin’ on informing us of your presence?” 

“I already told Samwise! Figured he’d be smart enough to mention I was around.”

“Nope. Idjit always did like keepin’ secrets.” Bobby shakes his head. Gabriel may not have wanted to tell the world but, well, Sam should have at least told Bobby. The man should know when Sam gets into a relationship with an angel. 

“He probably didn’t tell you, because he was afraid of what you’d say, seein’ as you know my history with the two of ‘em.” Gabriel finishes off his drink with a loud slurp and disappears the glass by blinking.

Bobby harrumphs. “He’d be right too, kid never did know how to make good choices. Good heart, but Dean had better sense an’ he was still a complete idjit.”

“Sam went to Stanford!” Jess protests. “He’s always been smart.”

“Yeah and shitty decision making skills.” Gabriel breaks in. “He never could learn what I tried to teach him.” 

Jess shrugs. She loves him, but even then, he was impulsive and headstrong. She’d loved it about him, but it sounded like the tendencies had come back to bite him in the ass. “What did you try to teach him?”

Gabriel mumbles something and Jess frowns. Gabriel’s embarrassed. “What was that, Gabriel?”

He mumbles again, words like “hell,” “Dean,” and “brother,” but Jess still can’t understand. 

“I’m sorry? Could you repeat that?” Jess says. 

“Fine. I heard Dean was going to hell right on schedule for the angels’ accelerated apocalypse. I knew what would happen if Sam went down the path to try and get Dean back so I tried to… teach him early that he needed to let go of Dean, needed to let him make his bed and lie in it. Thought maybe that’d keep him from going off the deep end when Dean went to hell. All it did was keep me maintaining a time loop in which Sam saw his brother die two hundred odd times and spend six months chasing me.” Gabriel shook his head. 

“You idiot!” Jess demands, standing. “How could you, Gabriel.”

“Oh, don’t you question my intentions, Jess-girl,” Gabriel says, not bothering to even stand, instead glaring up at her, golden eyes sparking. “I may have been mistaken in my methods but would you rather I bought into my brothers’ plan like I did a year and a half later when I couldn’t see a way around it? I tried to stop them from breaking the seals, tried to keep them from going down the path they were being manipulated down.” 

Jess breathes deeply for a few moments and accepts the glass of whiskey Bobby hands her. “Ok,” She finally says. 

"In the end it didn’t matter; Sam went off the deep end. Kinda like he did now, considerin’ Dean an’ Cas are in purgatory.” 

“How the hell did they get there, anyways?” Jess finally asks. “What did they get themselves into?” 

“You don’t even want to know. But they went after the monsters Cas let out and it sucked them in too.” Bobby shakes his head. 

“Do we have a plan?”

“Jess, we don’t even have the skin of our teeth,” Gabriel says honestly. “Just hope and pain swirled around enough until Sam thinks there’s some way to do it.” 

She nods, takes a sip of the whiskey Bobby had poured for her.


	12. Chapter 12

The signs had all been there. Gabriel always. This time, he’d only handed her a newspaper and a computer and told her to find their next hunt. He must have known what type of hunt she’d go for, one where some old lady had slaughtered her daughter and son in law and gone into a catatonic state. It was in North Carolina, hours away from where they were in Indiana and Gabriel flew them to the town. He’d been surlier than usual too, which hadn’t helped at the moment but made complete sense after the fact. 

He’d somehow managed to keep Sam out of her sights until she walks into the house to try and figure out what’s going on; she’s got an iron dagger, silver bullets loaded into her gun and holy water in her flask and Sam’s there, being thrown around by an angry spirit. He’s being pinned to the wall and she knows he hasn’t seen her, doesn’t actually see her even when she throws an iron dagger into the old lady the ghost is possessing (the ghost must have been strong to possess the old lady), takes his hand and sprints out of the house. He’s following blindly, she expects huge galumphing footsteps and all she gets are light steps, easily matching hers. Once they’re both standing outside in the broad daylight of a cul de sac (she’s never been so grateful for the nine to fivers who are never home at this time of day) he looks at her for more than one second and has his gun on her so fast that all she can do is blink. 

“What the hell do you think you’re trying to do?” His voice is low and Jess closes her eyes, reveling in the sound of his voice before snapping them back open to look at him again, drinking in his tangled long hair, flannel shirt and jeans. He’s filled out. Significantly. 

“I’m trying to save your life. Obviously you couldn’t handle the ghost by yourself,” She looks up at him, frown heavy on her face. Sam barely reacts and she sighs. “Look, I know this is strange but did you really think if I was given the opportunity to spend life with you, I wouldn’t jump at the chance?” She spreads her hands wide, drops her knife. 

“Look, who ever the hell you are, this isn’t funny.” 

“I’m not joking,” Jess says. “How about this. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who knows this besides you. We told everyone someone stole your boxers and hung them out of my window but the truth is we were both so drunk we thought it would be funny.” 

“How- I don’t know, how the hell did you know that?” Sam demands and Jess wonders just how jaded her Sam has gotten. She really shouldn’t be surprised. 

“Because I was there,” Jess says. “And I know you’ve been fucking an archangel,” she adds, frowning, stumbling over the words. 

“Gabriel, what the fuck?” Jess sucks a breath in. Sam is glaring at her, but he’s lowered his gun at least. 

“I’m not Gabriel, Sam. I just.. Gabriel told me about the two of you.”

“I don’t believe you aren’t Gabriel.” Right when he says that, they’re no longer in the street and are instead standing in an opulent room, famous paintings gracing the walls and fancy decorations and expensive furniture dotting the room. 

“Gabriel, you’re not helping!” Jess shouts, throwing her head back. When she looks back down Gabriel’s standing off to the side, expression unreadable, lollipop hanging out of his mouth. 

“I’m wounded, Jess. I bring you back to life and this is the thanks I get?” 

“It’s the thanks you get for screwing with me and Sam needlessly,” Jess crosses her arms. 

“What the hell Gabriel, I thought I told you not to come near me,” Sam is pointing at Gabriel, but she knows he’s keeping an eye on her too. 

“Well, kiddo, I’m sorry, but I owed you a couple favors and thought I’d cash in on them all at once. Here ya go!” he gestures towards Jess who feels her face get unreasonably hot. 

“I don’t understand,” Sam says, anger gone followed by confusion left in its place. 

“Gabriel found me in Heaven, asked me if I wanted to spend the rest of a natural life with you,” Jess interrupts. “I said yes. I mean, how could I not? I loved, love you,” she self corrects glancing over at Gabriel who nods at her. She steps forward. “Look, I know.. I don’t know what happened between you and Gabriel but he wants you to be happy. He thinks I can do that,” Jess reaches out, catches one of Sam’s limp hands. 

He’s staring at her, transfixed, eyes flickering over her face and then he’s caught her up in a hug so tight she’s fairly sure she can’t breathe at all. A blink and they’re back in a motel room that looks like the one she’d checked into but the layout is different. This is Sam’s room. He’s even in the same motel as her and she really wonders what Gabriel was doing to keep them apart in the last day and a half. 

“I, I just. I don’t believe it,” Sam says, stepping back, eyes drinking her in just as she drinks him in. 

“Well no matter what Gabriel did, you can’t say he doesn’t want you to be happy,” Jess pokes at him. 

“I,” Sam pauses. “I’ll always- Christo,” 

“I’m not a demon, Sam.” Jess says with a roll of her eyes. She reaches over, plucks the flask of holy water he’s got and pours it over her hand and pricks her finger with her own silver knife before handing it to Sam who studies it for a moment to hand it back. 

“Guess I owe the old fart,” Sam mutters as he stares helplessly at her. 

“At least he doesn’t owe you,” Jess points out. “I am a favor, after all,” she giggles. “A huge favor,”


	13. Chapter 13

She wakes the next morning to a dusty sunbeam tickling at her eyes and long hair that isn’t hers tickling at her nose, a heavy weight draped across her side and pinning her down. Her back aches, the pillow she’s lying on isn’t a pillow but an arm. She opens her eyes to find Sam’s brown ones staring at her and she smiles sleepily, drinking in the sight of him. He's still her Sam, no matter what he's been through.

“Hi,” He murmurs and she smiles and purrs as she stretches.

“Good morning.” She brings a hand up, strokes it along his stubble, pausing when she reaches back up to his side burns. “What on earth possessed you to grow side burns like this?” She asks. “Who told you it was a good look on you?”

“I- nobody,” Sam says, looking so forlorn that Jess can’t help but burst into giggles, feeling bad already.

“Aw, hon, don’t worry about it. I’ll still-“ Jess pauses, startling at how much it feels like before.

“What are you thinking about?” Sam’s voice rumbles as he pulls himself up to half sit against the wall and she follows, curving against his side, nestling her head into the space between his shoulder and his neck, tracing her hand down his pectorals.

“Just you and how much older you are and how I'm still me and I’ve spent eight years in Heaven with my parents and you’ve been running around starting and stopping apocalypses and consorting with Archangels… ” Jess says. “Mostly just wondering how mature I am in comparison to you now.” She realizes she’s just brought out a whole lot of shit into the open that she hadn’t intended to. Burrowing deeper into his neck, she breathes his scent in, sighs.

“How much did he tell you?” Sam finally asks.

“Not much," Jess says. “I mean, I know you two were a thing, but not much beyond that. I saw your mother and father and that night when you were a baby. Sam, I'm so sorry. Seeing me.. after your mother? God.."

“Wait, you what?” Sam asks, pulling away slightly and she looks up, meeting his eyes.

“Gabriel took me back a couple months ago. I think to give me insight to where you came from. I’m not really sure,” Jess says.

“Yeah- yeah, I met her once,” Sam trails off and Jess wonders what had been going on his life to force him to go back in time to meet his long dead mother. But she doesn’t ask because she knows there are probably a lot of sore points in Sam’s life and this is probably still one of them.

“I’m glad,” she says.

“Yeah… me too. I bawled like a little kid when I first saw her and she thought I was insane, this hunter who she doesn’t know, doesn’t know is her son shows up on her doorway and can’t even talk to her, just stares at her. Dean had to cover and he just.. He rolled his eyes and would’ve laughed at me if the situation itself weren’t so bizarre.”

Jess hums and rubs his chest as they’re lying there, taking comfort in the small familiar motion. He smiles at her and captures her hand. “She was lovely as far as I could tell.”

“She was beautiful. Is there anyone else from my life that I should know you’ve met?” Sam finally asks.

“Bobby. He’s a firecracker!” Jess says with a grin.

“Called you an idjit in the first five minutes, I bet, right?”

“Called you an idjit within the first five minutes,” Jess corrects poking at him. “I only lasted a minute or two." Sam rolls his eyes and shoves at her lightly.

“How do you feel about breakfast?”

“Like it’s the best thing you ever suggested,” Jess says even as her stomach rumbles.

“There’s a coffee shop nearby. We could get coffee and scones?” Sam offers.

The suggestion reminds Jess of their Sunday mornings at Stanford. It had started the second Sunday after they’d officially started dating in their freshman year and they’d rolled out of bed and realized they had homework to work on and their stomachs were screaming for food. The starbucks around the corner had a large enough table free so they’d ended up parking themselves there for most of the day. It had been filled with giggling and venti frappuccinos. They’d taken to making a tradition of it every week and pretty soon that table became known as their table, the baristas became friends, and they went from giggling little freshman to seniors who lived together and were planning the rest of their lives together.

Sam takes forever in the bathroom just as she remembers so in retaliation she takes longer. “You ready?” He gripes as she gets out and she smiles benignly.

“Just a moment and I will be!”

Eating at the coffee shop feels just as strangely familiar as she thought it would. It’s a local one, dark lighting, wooden bar, narrow with some old sentimental trinkets strewn throughout, like a juke box and vinyl records on the walls.

“What was heaven like for you?” Sam asks.

“Heaven was heaven,” Jess says, sipping on her drink, trying to get the last of the it with her straw. “It was beautiful and I could have spent hours doing whatever I wanted. i met a guy named Ash who said he knew you. He showed me how to find my parents, so I spent most of my time with them."

“Ash's a genius. Shoulda guessed he'd find you. Why would you come back down here?” Sam asks and Jess sees the flash of ten year old child she'd caught glimpses of when they'd been younger.

Jess giggles. “Are you kidding? Heaven was perfect and wonderful but Gabriel gave me the option to spend more time with you. My parents will always be there, I’d have to wait for you for a while longer. And,” Jess pauses. “If an Archangel comes to you asking a favor from you, how do you say no?”

As Sam opens his mouth, she hurries to continue. “Look I know you’re able to. Obviously you are since you aren’t with him anymore, but me? The only times I’ve met angels are when I was admitted into the souls’ part of heaven and seeing them shoot across my heaven sometimes. He was Gabriel and he was looking at me as if he could fix whatever it was he’d done wrong.” Jess lays a hand over Sam’s. “I don’t know what happened between you but I swear to God, Sam, if you think Gabriel doesn’t love you with all his being, I think you’re a blinder idiot than I knew you to be.” Jess watches as a muscle twitches in Sam’s tense jaw, his gaze resolutely fixed on some point outside. “And you will tell me what happened. Eventually,”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sam says in gritted tones, brown eyes cold when they meet hers, causing Jess’ heart to falter. She’s never seen those eyes as cold before. She wonders what she’s gotten herself into but when those eyes soften slightly, she remembers her Sam, sees him in this man.

“Are we going to take care of this ghost?” She asks a few minutes later.

“We?” Sam looks confused for a moment. “Look-“

“Oh, seriously?” Jess rolls her eyes. “Did you not see me yesterday?”

“What?” Sam says, frowning.

“That bitch was throwing you around, I saved your ass,” Jess points out. “I’ve hunted for a month or two now. I know what I’m getting myself into. You should see my biceps. I’m getting ripped!” She models and Sam makes a face at her. “What?”

“You’re… different,” he finally offers.

She blinks and lowers her arms. Face softening she reaches over and grabs his hand. “Of course I am, Sam. I died, I went to Heaven.”

“I, well- I never thought you’d want to be a hunter,” Sam says, gesturing around him and Jess knows he means his life.

“Well, I didn’t, but you’re a hunter and if the only way back to you is to become a hunter, I figured why not. Doing good for the world, just not how I thought I would when I was a kid, right?” Jess says with a shrug.

“It’s.. Well, it doesn’t feel like that a lot. I don’t know why I’m still a hunter except Dean.. We could.. We could stop,” Sam offers.

“No, Sam. I’ve made my peace with it.” Jess shakes her head. “I think you want to be a hunter now.” Jess says.

“I don’t,” Sam protests. “I just want my brother back,” he adds and Jess sighs.

“But if you give up hunting, you’ll always wonder, right?” Jess prods. He looks guilty so she takes that as affirmation.

“What's Castiel like?” she says to break the heavy silence that had settled over them.

“What- Gabriel didn’t say?” Sam asks, spitting Gabriel’s name out as if it were dirt. There’s so much anger there and Jess doesn't know what to do with it. Gabriel never said anything but Jess just wishes she could soothe the anger lying in Sam’s heart. Much as she wants Sam for herself, Gabriel’s her friend now and it makes her sick that the two of them cant even be in the same room..

"I know he's Gabriel's brother and that he's probably in love with your brother."

“Castiel is.. Well, he’s an Angel of the Lord as he would put it,” Sam’s mouth quirks as he says this. “He showed up four years ago a couple days after Dean digs himself up out of his grave, tells Dean he raised him up from Hell. He says that Dean has a greater purpose, tried to get Dean to say yes to Michael, tried to get him to go along with the apocalypse. Dean wasn’t having any of it, but, well, Dean can be,” Sam pauses before finishing the thought. “Convincing when he wants to be and he got Castiel on our side, got him to go up against his brothers and sisters and helped us put a stop to the apocalypse.”

“Is he anything like Gabriel?"

Sam snorts and shakes his head. “Dean calls him a ‘nerd angel,’ because he’s just.. He doesn’t really understand pop culture references almost ever; human interaction isn’t really his strong point.” Jess nods. Castiel sounds nothing like Gabriel with his vast pop cultural knowledge and vicious semse of humor. “But he means well and he cares; I’m pretty sure he’s in love with Dean and Dean is.. Well, Dean is Dean and he’s not really aware of these things, but he cares, I know that much. Castiel would do anything for Dean. He’s righteous in his own way and he goes along with Dean’s sense of humor. Castiel is exactly the kind of personDean needs in his life.” Sam’s shaking his head and Jess wishes she could meet this Castiel, a match for Sam’s brother that she’d only met the once. “They’re both in Purgatory and I honestly have no idea what to do.” Sam’s voice is shaky and Jess gets up, slides into the booth beside Sam and just leans into him like Gabriel had done for her only days ago.


	14. Chapter 14

When they show up at Bobby’s again, Bobby seems completely unsurprised to see them, calls Sam an idjit for not coming more often and lets them in. Jess ignores Bobby’ asking where Gabriel is and instead makes a beeline for the bedroom she'd stayed in before, wanting to shower the grit of traveling off her. 

It is quiet; the rumbling of Sam and Bobby talking out their issues filtering through the walls rather like a soothing trickle. 

It wasn’t like this with Gabriel. She couldn’t say it was easy, but it wasn’t like this. It had been different from everything she had ever known and there had been moments, many moments, in which it had been stiflingly boring. But there wasn’t this, this tension, this strife and conflict. It's as if she and Sam were on completely different levels and there are moments where it's like it was, but most of the time, it seems like misunderstandings and anger. She loves him, she still wants to be with him, but those eight years are making all the difference in the world. Perhaps she had been deluded, perhaps Gabriel hadn’t disabused her of them because they suited his purposes. 

She wasn’t backing away, there was something there, something she wanted to hold on to, but damn, it was hard. They hadn’t even spent a full month together yet. The first day had been amazing but then she had followed Sam into his routine, and, well, Sam was grouchy. A lot. He focused his energies and sometimes when he looked at her, she knew he wasn’t seeing her. He was seeing something else. Gabriel, perhaps. Dean? She didn’t know. 

“Jess,” his low voice interrupts her thoughts as she starts and realizes she’s let the water run too long and she's a prune and just wasted Bobby's hot water. She steps out, pulls her clothes on and opens the door.

“Sam!” She pastes a smile on her face and he looks at her. Oh. He did always have a good bull shit detector. 

“What’s wrong?” Sam finally says.

“Nothing?” Jess says, frowning, not sure what Sam is asking. 

“Don’t bullshit me.” Sam’s leaning on the counter now, looking down at her with that oh so familiar eye crinkle and she sighs. 

“I came back for you, Sam, but I can’t do all the work here. You are going to have to let me in at some point.” 

“I, I’m trying, what the hell do you want?” 

Jess raises her hands in surrender. “You?” She tries. “And that’s kind of what I’m talking about, right there. It’s so hard to talk to you without you getting angry about something.” 

“You’ve been dead for eight years,” Sam says after breathing heavily through his nose. “What do you expect?”

“Well, I hoped for the wrong things and I think Gabriel-stop wincing at his name, he’s been a wonderful friend and you need to get over it-let me get my hopes up too much, wanted me believe it would be so easy with you because he wanted your happiness too much. Or perhaps he was selfish and did not want me to back out when I found out how hard it was going to be.” Jess shrugs. “Either way, I should have been smart enough to think it through more.”

“Don’t tell me how to think about Gabriel,” Sam starts. “Look, I know he’s got his good sides, hell, I was with him for seven months, which, by the way was the first long term relationship I had besides-well, since you.” There’s something there he’s not telling her. 

“You’re lying,” she says, crossing her arms. “You’re lying right there and that is exactly why we’re having so much trouble. You want us to be good? So make it good! Tell me the truth when it comes up. I’m not asking for all the details, but obviously there’s stuff in your life that I probably should know because it’s affecting you now.” 

“I- I don’t-“ Sam is blustering. 

Jess raises an eyebrow. “You can’t scare me. I know you started the apocalypse and I’m still here. Grow up, Sam.” 

“You grow up,” he grumbles and she cracks a smile. After all, that was their thing. 

“No, you,”

“You.” It ends when they’re giggling on the floor of Bobby’s bathroom, probably covered in blood and whatever particles and dirt and bone remained, giggling, stomaches aching and their hands clasped, fingers entwined. Bobby looks in on them now, now that it has quieted down and harrumphs before disappearing. 

“Is he always like that?” Jess asks nodding at the now empty doorway. 

“Yep,” Sam says, nudging her with his shoulder. “He’s been like a second dad for us, especially since our Dad died about a year after you.” 

“I’m so sorry.” 

Sam shrugs. “Thanks. I don’t know what we would’ve done without Bobby after that. He’s saved our asses more times than we can count.”

“Can you tell me about what you were lying about before?” She asks. 

Sam is quiet, still. He’s quiet for a long time and Jess wonders if he’s frozen. But he clears his throat roughly and she squeezes his hand. “I, it’s weird to talk about it with you because you weren’t there and you can’t read minds and personal histories in a glance,” At her glance, he adds “Have you talked to Gabriel? Angels just know shit.” Sam shakes his head with a laugh. “Castiel was exactly like that too,” Jess nods, she thinks its rather like brothers being.. Having similarities. “I, well, you know Dean went to hell, right?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Jess nods. “I think Gabriel mentioned it when he was giving me an overview.”

“Well a couple months before that, we’re fighting a handful of demons and witches and this girl comes in, saves me and Dean but she’s, well, she’s a demon. Her name was Ruby and she kept showing up, kept helping us. Dean never trusted her but, well, Dean had a price on his head, was going to die within the year and I was desperate. Dean’s Dean is, well, he’s my brother. I was willing to listen to her because she offered me a chance, offered me hope.” 

“So you just started dating her?” Jess asks, frowning. 

“What Ruby, that was her name, and I had, I wouldn’t call it exactly a relationship or dating or whatever,” Sam defends. 

“So if it wasn’t a relationship, what was it?” 

“Sort of like a dealer and a junkie?” Sam offers. “With,” he hesitates, looking about as embarrassed as he had ever looked to her. “A tendency towards sex and entanglement that looks like a relationship?” 

“You realize that doesn’t make a lick of sense, right?” Jess asks. “What were you addicted to?”

“Demon blood,” Sam says. “You could say I still am, except that I don’t use anymore.” 

“How the hell did she get you on blood?” Jess demands, infuriated and disgusted. 

“It’s, it’s not what it sounds like?” 

“Oh hell no, it’s exactly what it sounds like, what the hell happened, Sam?” Jess demands.

“I dreamt about you dying for days before it happened, Jess. There was a time where I had these abilities. Psychic abilities. I could do a bit of telekinesis but mostly I had pre-cognitive dreams. When we killed the demon that killed my mom, the one who fed me demon blood as a six month old baby, the dreams stopped but Ruby got me back on demon blood, her blood and all of a sudden I had these abilities, I could kill demons with my mind, I could keep them from coming close to me.” Sam runs a hand through his hair. “Look, there was this demon, Lilith, she was Lucifer’s first demon, the first human he turned to evil, tortured and made into this supernatural being that lives and rots in hell. She was bound and something released her, so she was going around breaking seals to get Lucifer out of his cage. Ruby told me if we killed her we could keep Lucifer from rising.”

Jess sighs, seeing where this is going. But well, who is she to judge? “I understand,” Jess says quietly. 

“When I found out the truth, when Dean came after me, I killed her, Jess. I killed the woman, the demon I’d spent a year working with, that I’d trusted with my life. I don’t regret it, but sometimes it still hurts to know I trusted her.” 

“Sam,” Jess lets her grief for the way his life has gone shine straight through that one word.


	15. Chapter 15

When they’ve stayed with Bobby for several days, he catches them sitting on his porch and tells them there’s a case, would they like to take it? Jess looks over at Sam and he’s got this expression on his face and she knows he’s getting antsy. She nods, since Sam seems to be unable to answer. “Where is it?”

“Your old haunt, Stanford.” Bobby says. “You’re probably not the closest hunters but if I farmed it out, I’d never hear the end of it.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Jess says with a smile. “You mind driving, Sam?” 

“Sure, yeah, why not,” Sam says. 

“Great! We can leave later today, right?” She’s not sure how this is going to work, they’ve not coordinated on a hunt before, just driven around the country and she has a feeling Sam still doesn’t see her as a hunter. Not yet. He will, she will make him or make Gabriel make him. 

“Yes,” Sam trails off. “Of course we can.” 

“Good!” Jess bounces up. “I’ll go get our stuff together. What else do we need to do?” 

"I'd like to make a run into town, we can leave after that." She kisses him once, before he leaves, but he seems distracted so Jess goes back to sitting on the porch. 

It’s a quiet morning while Sam's gone. “Bobby?” She asks a few minutes after he’s joined her on the porch. “What was Sam like as a kid?” 

Bobby puts down the book he’s currently pouring over. It has to be slow going since the book is written in ancient Greek. “A smart ass,” He grumbles. “Had a mouth on him, not like Dean did, but if Sam blew his lid, you knew it. Was always talkin’ back to his dad. He meant well but the kid thought he knew best. He adored Dean, the kids had a bond, still do. He was shy, smart, tried to avoid trouble even when it flocked over to him.” 

Jess nods. She can still see many of those parts of Sam in him now. “He sounds like a normal kid.”

“He certainly wanted to be a normal kid, wanted to stay in one school or at least stay in a school for longer than a couple months.” Bobby shakes his head. “John never could get that, he was too focused on avenging the death of Mary. I tried but I could only do so much for the boys.” 

“And Dean?” Jess finally asks. 

“Dean, well, Dean has a tendency to roll over for those he loves and he always got stuck in the middle between his dad and Sam. He wanted them both to be happy but neither would back down, would ever admit fault. He took responsibility for a lot of things he shouldn’t have had to take responsibility for. Like Sam.” 

“But isn’t Dean only four years older than Sam?” Jess finally asks. 

“Exactly,” Is Bobby’s only response and he goes back to translating. Jess sits there, pain in her heart for Sam’s older brother.

“Did he.. Did he ever have dreams of his own?” she finally asks. 

“Kid gave up everythin’, you think he tells me what his dreams are?” Bobby says gruffly. “Kid always ‘knew’ he’d be a hunter, didn’t let himself dream of anythin’ else. Spent a couple years wanting out of huntin, but that was when shit was real bad, the apocalypse was hanging over our heads. When Sam went to hell, Sam made him promise to go find Lisa, try and make a life of it. He promised and he did, for four months but it didn’t hold. Hunting’s just what he knows.” 

*

*  
Jess was already tired of the Impala. It had only been a day out of South Dakota and she’d already identified all the weird smells in the impala: sweat, old leather, gun powder, some kind of mix of supernatural gunk (ectoplasm, what probably was monster blood), human blood, old burgers. The car was clean, but they were living out of it. 

“How do you do this all the time?” she finally asks as she stares out the windshield from the passenger seat. 

“Do what?” Sam asks, bewildered. 

“Drive everywhere?” Jess says, gesturing around the car. “I mean, we’re driving across the country and, well, yeah. It’s just insane.” 

“What are you talking about?” Sam’s grip is white knuckled on the steering wheel. 

“Just.. Why can’t we fly?” Jess finally asks. “If we’re going to go across country, why can’t we fly?” 

Sam looks at her and she sets her jaw. She’s not an idiot. She went to Stanford. She’s just new to hunting. “Don’t look at me like that, Sam.” She snaps. “I don’t appreciate it.”

He shrugs with an apologetic smile. “We’ve got a weapons store we’d never get past security even if we check it in our trunk and I don’t want to just leave the Impala for people to find that weapons store if the police get curious.” 

She hadn’t thought about that. They need certain things to successfully ‘gank’ something (as Sam would say) and those don’t go well with flying. “Besides,” Sam continues, “for the records, I’m officially dead and I don’t really feel like trying to test airport security with fake IDs unless I have to.”

“You’re officially dead?” Jess asks as she stretches her legs out one at a time, trying to relieve the tight muscles.

“Yeah. Happened a couple years after you died, we got caught out by the FBI in a couple of our hunts where it looked like we were murdering people, committing felonies on a wild spree,” Sam says casually and Jess blinks. 

“Is there anything else I should know?” She turns to look at Sam. “Have you actually died?” 

“A couple times,” Sam says. There’s something in the tone that makes Jess pause. 

“How many is a couple?” 

“Less than Dean?” Sam glances at her before turning back to driving. “I went to Heaven a couple times too.”  
“Why didn’t you come see me?”

“Ash says that everyone has their own heaven and-“ Jess waves him off. 

“Yeah, I know, Ash showed me how to jump between them. I spent a lot of time with him and Jo.” 

“Well, Cas needed us to find an angel, we didn’t have _time_ to go looking. I’m sorry.” Sam is pouting and Jess sighs.


	16. Chapter 16

She slams the door to the Impala staring up at the familiar arches of the Stanford memorial church in front of her, the warmth of the sun beating down on her. This was only a few miles away from where she had died eight years ago. Leaning against the door of the impala, she turns her face up to the sun, lets it warm her, warm her soul and gather her courage to face down the college campus where she had spent her last years of life. 

Opening her eyes, she notices Sam rounding the Impala, expression stony. The last couple hundred miles had been quiet, the both of them deep in thoughts and memories of this place that was so full of their shared memories, shared joys, shared pains. “So what’s next?” Her voice is quiet, she isn’t sure she wants to jolt Sam out of his memories but they can not just stand there staring all day. 

“I almost got my college degree,” Sam says finally. “I was so close,” 

“Yes, and you still could,” Jess points out. 

“How?” Sam asks. “According to the law, I’m dead and even if I wasn’t, I’ve been accused of so many crimes, no university would ever admit me.” 

Jess rolls her eyes and starts up towards the chapel. They might as well start poking around at least. “Sam, you’ve got about fifty different fake IDs, why do you think you couldn’t use a fake identity and fake transfer transcripts to get yourself into college?” 

Silence greets her and she glances back to see Sam, quiet, following her into the chapel. There’s a corridor on the outside, decorated with arches separating them from the wider campus that they end up walking along for a few feet before entering through a large heavy wooden door. The chapel is empty, quiet. Light streams through the windows high up, showcasing the dust streams and hitting the pews. The religious paintings on the walls are in shadow and Jess finds the whole scene breathtaking. “I’d forgotten just how pretty this place can get,” She says. 

“It is,” Sam says and she notices just how he’s looking around, realizes that unlike when they were students, he’s now automatically seeing the hiding places, the places they could take cover. 

“It’s a church, we should be safe in here,” Jess points out. 

“From most things, but Crowley’s found us in a church before, he’s found his way in.” Sam says absently. 

“We’re fighting a ghost, right? Regular salt and burn as they say,” Jess argues. 

“Sometimes things that we think are going to be salt and burns end up being something else entirely.” Sam says and Jess can’t argue with that. 

She breaks off from Sam and wanders towards the walls, looking at the mosaic paintings, the christian centered stained glass. She looks back to see Sam staring up, up at the angels built into the structure, supporting the dome above them. Joining him, she stares at them. Angels mean simultaneously so much less and so much more to her since she died and came back to life. 

She knows that none of the people who worked on this met any angels, one of them still looks a bit like Gabriel and that is where Sam is looking. She hasn’t seen Gabriel in a couple weeks now and she’s not surprised to discover that she misses him. 

“It's peculiar,” She whispers, conscious that they were in a church and wanting to be respectful. “How very much that one resembles Gabriel with his current vessel.” 

“I hadn’t noticed,” Sam says in that tone of voice that tells her just how much he has noticed even as he doesn’t want to. 

“It’s ok, Sam, to be reminded of him.”

“I ended it, I’m over it, why do you keep acting as if I’m not?” Sam demands. 

“No reason,” Jess says, after a moment. She wants Sam to be over it and she’s not entirely sure pushing it means that Sam is going to get over it. 

“Let’s go find this James Cosway,” Sam says, turning away from the dome. “He works in the Material Research building, Bobby said.” He’s stalking back down the aisle and Jess takes a look back at the beautiful center. When she and Sam had started becoming more serious, she had thought about getting married in this church. 

“You know,” she says conversationally as she follows Sam back out into the bright sunlight, blinking, “I had many day dreams in Professor Hughes’ class about marrying you in there. It helped keep me from murdering the old man out of sheer boredom. Or spite for torturing us by boredom.” 

“Really?” Sam says looking back at her, odd expression on his face. 

“Yeah, I mean, I loved you, of course I thought about marrying you,” Jess shrugs. 

“When you- when you died, I had been shopping for rings,” Sam admits. “It was terrifying and exciting. And then, then you died and my whole world crashed down and burned.” Jess nods as they near the Material Research building. 

“I would have married you, I would have said yes,” Jess says.

“Would you still?” Sam’s voice is quiet and Jess wonders where the question came from. It surprises her, she’s not sure she knows the answer, but the moment of hesitation is enough for Sam to firm his jaw and step forward into the building from where he’d been looking down at her. 

“Sam!” she protests. “Look, it’s only because we’ve been apart for so long. You’re.. You’re different.” She hurries into the building, wincing at their footsteps echoing through the mostly empty hallway. 

“I’m different?” Sam mutters to her and Jess feels her face heat. 

“Not, no, just, we haven’t spent the last eight years together and you’re older and I’m well, I was in heaven but I still look like a twenty one year old woman, not a twenty nine year old woman.” Jess shrugs, wondering what Gabriel would make of this conversation. He would probably shower them in flowers, hiding his envy behind a giant celebration of her and Sam’s ‘love’. Did angels feel envy? Gabriel seemed to. 

“So? I still love you. Do you love me? Sometimes it doesn’t seem like it,” Sam throws out and Jess wonders where this is coming from. 

“We’ll talk about this later,” Jess says, eying the door in front of them where James Cosway’s name was inscribed. 

“No, we’ll talk about it now,” Sam demands. 

“Sam, we’re at James Cosway’s door and you want to talk about our personal life?” Jess asks and Sam flushes before shutting his mouth again. 

She raises her hand and knocks on the door. There is a shuffling of papers and then footsteps. The door swings open silently and a slight middle aged man is looking out at them. “Yes?” his voice is whispery quiet and Jess almost has to strain to hear him. He’s got thin, neatly kept hair and a slight hunch to his shoulders. 

“Hi Professor Cosway, my name’s Sarah Morris, I write for the Stanford Daily and I wanted to talk to you about Galiena and what happened. We’re hoping to start an in memoriam section of the paper and we know you loved your wife very much.” 

“Galiena died two weeks ago,” he’s wary and Sam’s tried to prep her for this as much as possible. 

“We know. We thought maybe it would be better to give you time to mourn before asking this of you.” Jess smiles, in what she hopes come off in a sympathetic manner.

“Well, I appreciate the consideration but no thank you. I’m a private man.” 

“Wait!” Sam says, pushing forward. 

“Who are you? You don’t look like a student here.” 

“I- I’m a doctoral student in English, I oversee some of the newspaper production. Jess here is new and we’re trying this out. We just want to ask a few questions, we really want to give her a proper goodbye as a community. It was awful that she was taken so early from us. Please, Professor Cosway, don’t you want Galiena to be remembered as the wonderful woman she is?” 

“I, well, yes, I suppose so,” he shuffles back and lets them into his office, which is piled with papers, trinkets, and tools. 

They settle themselves into his guest chairs and the man slumps into his desk chair. “Thank you, Mr Cosway,” Jess says quietly, taking out her notebook. “Can you tell me what Galiena was like?” Sam’s giving her this look but she doesn’t care. Simply asking questions about her death won’t keep their cover nearly as well. Besides, paying tribute to those who died at the hands of something supernatural seems important to her. 

“She was beautiful, inside and out,” Cosway says. “Always took care of everything, I never had to clean, she was always there. I would have,” he hurries to add, “but she always took care of me and how can you say no to a beautiful woman taking care of you? So I tried to make life as easy for her as I could, but I don’t know if I did. She was quiet; she loved everyone and she was so smart. Not book smart, but she understood people and their needs in a way that no one else does.” James has this look on his face, one that she knows she’s seen before on Gabriel as he was thinking of Sam or thinking of his Brothers and Sisters. 

“That’s wonderful Mr Cosway, I wish I had been lucky enough to meet her,” Jess leans forward, takes one of the man's hands. “Can you tell me a bit about what happened? Just to make sure we have all the details from your perspective?”

“I- God, it’s all my fault,” He puts his face into his palms, rubbing at it. “I was working late, but Galiena wanted to visit the memorial church on our anniversary, so we were going to meet on the main Quad at around 8pm. I ended up running out of my office at 8:15 and when I got there.. There was a crowd of screaming students that I could barely push my way through and my beautiful, my, my beautiful Galiena was lying there, bloody and lifeless,” He rubs a hand over his face again, as if it might take some of the grief away. 

“What did the police say happened?” 

“That she must have been mugged, but-“

“But?” Jessica asks. 

“Nothing, if they say it was a mugging, it must have been a mugging,” the man shakes his head. 

“Off the record?” Jessica asks, leaning forward. “Was there anything that didn’t seem to fit with a mugging?”

“I don’t, well, who stabs with a sharpened wooden branch?” 

“Mr Cosway, bear with me for a second, but was it.. Was it cold when you got there? As if the rest of the campus was normal Palo Alto temperatures and that one spot felt rather like Sacramento in winter?” 

“I-how did you know that?" 

“Just curious” Sam says, shrugging. Jess nods. 

“Did you.. Did you see anything odd that evening?”

“Besides tons of students crowded around my wife’s dead body? No, I was too busy being in shock. Now, if you don’t mind..” Jess gets up with a nod and Sam follows. 

“Thank you Professor Cosway. I’m so sorry for your loss.” She leads Sam out of the office and their walk back to the exterior of the building is silent, slipping back into the tension that had somehow managed to arise just before going in. 

When they sit on a bench in the main quad, watching students cross before the church, Jess finds the words to speak again. “Sam,”

“What?” His voice is sharp and Jess has to suppress an eye roll. He’s been twitchy and it’s not exactly conducive to conversations. 

“I don’t want to marry you because I need to acclimate to life again. I’ve been dead for eight years, you’ve been in relationships with other people. Neither of us thought we’d see each other again until you died and only maybe then. I love you but it’s going to take a little while to rebuild what we had. And don’t give me that look,” she adds. “I do love you. I loved you then, I still love you now. You need to think about whether you love me or not.”

“I love you, of course I love you!” Sam protests and Jess shakes her head. “You’ve loved my memory for years, Sam and I think you could love me again but right now? You sort of love me but you’re still in love with Gabriel.”

“I’m not- I’m, what are you talking about?” Sam demands. 

“Nothing. Forget I mentioned it,” Jess rolls her eyes. “Look, this is where Galiena died, right? And it sounds like it was a ghost, right?” 

“I can’t forget it when you accuse me of something that’s not true.” 

“Look, I want this to work and I think you do too, so can we please drop it and pretend to be a normal couple for a couple minutes? We’re working a case.” She holds her hand out, pointing towards where Galiena died. 

“I-“ Sam’s eyes drift to the side before meeting hers. “I wish I could be normal for you, Jess,” he’s earnest, pleading. 

“If you were normal, you wouldn’t be half as interesting,” She smiles and chucks him on the chin. “Plus it’s so easy to pick a fight with you when I’m feeling annoyed.”

He rolls his eyes and looks back out at the quad. It’s amazing how quickly they go from having intense fights to teasing. It might not be healthy, but it’s their relationship. She’s surprised Sam doesn’t have more issues, if she’s honest with herself.

“Look at those statues,” Sam points out. They’re off to the side, near the church entrance and Jess tilts her head, looking at them. “Were they there when we were students?” 

“I don’t think so,” Jess offers. 

“Well, I’m starved. You want to get food at the Gateway?” Jess nods with a grin; she remembers the small lunch joint they would always get takeout from.

“Good. Maybe the library after?” 

“Perfect.” She reaches over and takes his hand. As they walk past the statues, she wonders why on earth Stanford wanted to put the angels in such a random assortment of positions. It’s eerie and strange. By the time they get into the cafe, she’s moved on, thinking about what she’d like to eat. 

Sitting there towards the front of the cafe, she feels like she’s still a student, as if she could fall back into that old life and still live it. But when she looks up, she sees Sam looking eight years older, tired, stress lines starting to show around his eyes and she knows she doesn’t want to. “Do you miss college?” She finally asks as they’re finishing up their salads. 

“All the time,” Sam says. “I know what I’m doing is good, but college was the first thing I was allowed to choose for myself and it was wonderful.” 

“That’s what college is about, making choices independent of your parents’ opinions,” Jess points out, the idea obvious to her although she suspects Sam is coming from a slightly different perspective. 

“When I was growing up, with my Dad, he had a very.. Authoritarian view on life.” Sam’s speaking, his eyes far off. “Since he was a monster hunter and we travelled around a lot, he wanted, thought he neeeded us to obey his every word. Dean found that easier than I do, but we had to do as he said, we had to take his word as God’s word. Getting away from that was simultaneously the easiest and the hardest thing I have ever done in my life,” Sam looks back at her and she takes his outstretched hand with a smile. 

“John must have changed so much from when I followed him just after Dean was born.” 

“He did. But he did his best.. But he was just running on grief and rage. I don't think he ever got over my mother's death." They sit there for a little while longer and it feels like old times, laughing and teasing each other until the sun sets lower in the sky.

“Should we go to the library now?” Jess gets up, gathers her purse and tosses her trash into the bin nearest their table. 

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Sam follows her lead.


	17. Chapter 17

The library was just as she remembered it; both homey and intimidating. As she walked in, the main hallway was full of those traditional arches and old gold lined books, quiet fancy chairs and old desks but as the two of them went further in, there was the area that was newer that was much friendlier and far less intimidating. The chairs were much more reminiscent of typical cheap college chairs that you could curl up in without feeling bad about destroying the fancy old leather with their shoes. They used the computers after the reference librarian gave them the sign in. 

“What should we look for first?” Jess asks as they sit at computers next to each other. 

“Why don’t you look for anything about James Cosway and I’ll look into Galiena.”

“Ok,” She finally said. Turning towards her computer, she opened up google and typed in James Cosway and opened another tab to the Stanford website to look at what was presented there. 

After half an hour she shoved herself away from the computer, unable to take another five minutes of looking at articles written by the man and old teaching positions the man had held. “I think Cosway doesn’t have anything in his past that would indicate that he would have gotten the attention of a vengeful ghost,” Jess says. “I got nothing.”

“Huh, well, listen to this, Galiena Cosway was an archaeologist and she brought those statues that we saw in the quad over from Spain.” Sam’s looking at her and then back at his computer and she leans over into his space, purposely leaning into him as she looks at the news article with a picture of the dead woman standing next to several wooden crates with a smile on her face as if she’s never done anything better. “Ms Galiena Cosway, newly hired associate professor of Archaelogy at Stanford University is returning from a dig in the south of Spain and did the university a favor by returning with statues it recently acquired from a museum while there. The statues are believed to have been created by one of Spain’s premiere sculptors in the 19th century. The angels, as they are called, will be placed near the outside of Stanford’s church.” 

Jess’ eyebrows rise. Looking closer at the picture, she blinks. “Is it just me, or are those angels in a completely different formation than we saw earlier today?” 

Sam leans in again. “I- Yes, yes they are,” He draws back, runs a hand through his hair. “Well great,” he mumbles and Jess looks at him, curious. 

“What is it?” She finally asks when it doesn’t appear the man will be clarifying any time soon. 

“Just.. I was hoping for a simple salt and burn. I love Stanford, but aren’t you afraid someone might recognize us?” Sam is frowning

“Well, sure, but, well, honestly? You can fool anyone because you’re eight year older and we’re both supposedly dead, so it’s not like people are going to be looking for us.” Jess shrugs. 

“I guess.” Sam shrugs as they walk out towards the door. Back in the main quad, Jess looks at the angels again. 

“Sam?” She squeezes his hand. “I think the statues have moved again.” 

“Hungh,” is his only response and she whips her head around. Sam is looking rather sick to his stomach. 

“Sam? Sam! What happened?” Jess rushes over to him and he’s bent over. She wraps an arm around his side and slings his arm around her shoulders, staggering a little under his weight. 

“Dunno, just.. Mngrgh” Sam’s head is hanging and his hair is hanging in his face. 

“If you puke, push yourself away from me,” Jess says and he nods weakly as they walk over towards the impala. Leaning him up against the impala, she fishes in his pants pocket for the Impala. She hasn’t driven for eight years, she’s never driven a car this big, but it doesn’t matter because there is no way that Sam can drive in this state. They need to call Bobby. She needs to call Bobby. She fumbles and finally gets the door open. Tucking the keys back into her pocket, she shifts Sam and helps him settle into the passenger seat. 

“C’n you drive?” He mumbles. 

“Yes,” Jess says. “I can make sure to get us to a motel nearby.” 

“Don’.. Don’t scratch the Impala.” 

“I won’t,” Jess promises as she shuts the door carefully. He slumps against it and she runs around to the other side, sliding into the driver’s seat. She’s forgotten just how much taller Sam is, she can reach the pedals but it’s still difficult to reach them. She adjusts the seat and starts the car, terrified of the rumble as it comes through the car, engine going and running through and vibrating again. 

Luckily there’s no car in front of her and she can pull out easily enough. It seems like forever before the traffic lightens up enough for her to feel comfortable pulling out and she does so. Vaguely remembering that there was a motel north of campus, she heads in that direction and drives in what feels like circle until she comes across it again. Just like she remembers, its an old run down motel that looks even older and more rundown in the last eight years. It is completely incongruous with its surroundings of wealthy Palo Alto. 

Thank god they have cards because they don’t have much on cash at the moment and she hasn’t yet figured out how to swindle people out of their money and Sam is in no shape to do so. The clerk doesn’t bat an eye and it’s easy enough to just smile and grit her teeth through the check in process while she worries that Sam might throw up all over the interior of the Impala and never forgive himself. Dean’s ghost would haunt him forever and a day. 

She rushes back out to the car and drives them as close to their room as she can, hauling Sam out. He’s barely awake enough to help her and she knows that’s a weakness between the two of them. If Sam is ever knocked unconscious, she may not be able to move him. She won’t be able to leave him either to protect herself, she knows that. She gets him into the room, on to a bed and gets her phone out, dialing Bobby’s emergency line. 

“Bobby here,” is his response on the phone, short and clipped. 

“Bobby??” Jess is surprised at just how panicked her voice is. She has managed to hold it together until then. “Sam, Sam is, he’s sick.”

“So? Should I care?” Bobby’s curt and cool. 

"He was fine until half an hour ago and then we walked past the statues and he suddenly gets so sick he can barely speak at all.” Jess tucks the phone between her ear and her shoulder and leans over Sam, brushing the hair from his brow. He’s curled into himself on the bed. "I had to hold him up on the way back to the car.” 

“What happened?” Bobby demands. 

“Nothing! Well, we walked past the statues and I could swear they weren’t in the same place as they were before. And the lady who was killed, she was killed near there and she was the one to bring them over…” Jess trails off, wondering if that was somehow related. 

“Idjits!” Bobby growls. 

“Bobby, what do I do?” Jess runs a hair through her hair. 

“Just.. Monitor him and if he gets worse, get ‘im to a hospital. I’m thinkin’ you got yourselves somethin’ to do with those statues of yours. I thought this was an old salt n’ burn?” Bobby says. 

“Does Sam ever get run of the mill salt burns?” Jess asks after a moment. 

That earns her a snort of amusement. “Nope, never knew the boy to get a simple hunt practically ever.” 

“Look, I”ll do what I can with the wifi here, can you research this on your end too?” Jess breathes through her nose, trying to get the calm feeling to spread from just her voice and to where she actually feels it for once. She hurries out to the Impala and grabs her and Sam’s bags bringing them in. They need that computer. Settling herself on the opposite side of the bed, she boots the computer up, gets the internet squared away and searches for more information about the statues and where they came form. 

After twenty minutes, she finds a relevant article about where they’ve been before and events that have happened around them. The statues had been considered cursed, as someone nearly always died near them at some point. There had been accidental beheadings, disappearances, guttings, defenestrations, to name only a few of the gruesome deaths. No one seemed to have picked up on it beyond a few blog posts of people who said that they found that statues rather creepy. 

She called Bobby’s number glancing over at Sam’s shivering form. He hadn’t really gotten worse so much as his symptoms had shifted from nausea and blinding pain to jittery cold and delirium. Well, perhaps worse but she wasn’t sure if the doctors could do anything to help and she really didn’t want to involve medical professionals unless she had to. 

“Yeah,” Bobby answered. 

“Bobby, listen, there have been a number of deaths over the years near wherever these statues are installed. Someone was defenestrated, another person was killed by being sliced open, someone else was accidentally beheaded. All kinds of weird deaths. No evidence of anyone else getting inexplicably sick, but I think most people wouldn’t link it to statues,” She says. “No one’s linked it specifically to the statues, but there are a bunch of blog posts about people who say the statues are creepy, horrific.”

“Yeah, and I’ve got somethin’ here talking about living statues, turns out ghosts can attach themselves to the statues, usually through somethin’ that people think is part of the statue, but isn’t. Makes ‘em move around and stuff.” 

“OK,” Jess says. “So we have a vengeful ghost that’s trying to kill as many people as possible via a statue.” 

“Yep.” Bobby says. 

“So. What does that have to do with Sam getting so sick.”

“Far as I can tell, some kinda of ghost sickness. So you get the ghost, you get Sam back,” Bobby says. “You up to this girl?” 

“I-“ Jess halts, thinking. “Yes?” She finally says. 

“If you ain’t, I’ll get another hunter in there to take care of it.” 

“No, I’m good, I- If it gets real bad, I’ll call.” Jess says, trying to assure Bobby even if she knows she’s deceiving him a bit. She won’t call Bobby, he’s too far away and the other hunters would be as well. But Gabriel can be there in a blink and she’s pretty sure he’ll hear panicked prayers to him and respond. They are friends after all. She hangs up after a few more minutes spent convincing Bobby (the man cares too much despite pretending not to) that she would be fine, that she’d care for Sam. 

Deciding that night is not the best time to tackle an angry spirit, she turns the TV on, muting the sound and idly watches some show about a tall lanky man in a bow tie and tweedy jacket. He’s got a pretty redhead chasing him around, yelling and her husband who watches over her and saves her.


	18. Chapter 18

“Sam, how are you feeling?” Jess pushes on Sam’s shoulder and he mumbles in his sleep. He’s still hot to the touch and doesn’t seem quick to wake which worries Jess, but she doesn’t want to bring him to the hospital yet. 

Instead, she leaves with a prayer to Gabriel, asking him to send her strength. He’s probably annoyed at her now because she’s sending him a prayer just like the millions of other people praying to him on a daily basis. 

Making sure she has salt and gasoline on her and her lighter in her pocket, she walks to the Impala and gets back in the driver’s seat. It’s a car’s car, one that is big and scary, mean and intimidating. Her parents both owned toyota camries and she'd never learned to drive anything bigger. 

She manages to park without a hitch and tumbles into the street, shutting the door and locking it, locking the trunk just in case and making sure the gasoline canister is in her backpack as well as the salt. Going to the statues, she knows they’re onto something with their theory as no one seems to have noticed, but the statues have moved around again. It’s the middle of the afternoon and somehow no one is around. She remembered the quad as always being crowded, full of students studying and playing frisbee. 

She walks around them, eyeing them warily, before walking amongst them trying to find what could possibly be mistaken as part of the statuary but wasn't. She hears something rustling a couple times and jerks around to find nothing particularly different except.. Well, there’s nothing really different. The statues are in the same place but.. Well, she turns back to examining the statue in front of her. There’s nothing there. Nothing that’s not metal and welded into the statue. 

She moves to the next one and it’s the same way. Only on one of the last statues does she see something that doesn’t quite match the rest of the statuary. She wonders how she’s going to get away with burning a part of the statue in broad daylight. She hadn’t thought about that part when she had been congratulating herself on being intelligent enough to not go near haunted statuary at night. 

Well, it was the middle of classes right now and if she moved quickly.. There was another rustling and she saw that one of the statues had definitely changed positions. Interesting. She would have to move quick- Metal clamped down on her ankle and trapped. Awesome. Thankfully she was in close enough reach, so she gets the salt out, does her best to salt the piece of bronze metal and pours gasoline over it, and sets a light to it. 

It lights up in a small fire and burns quickly, not doing much but she feels some of the sense of impending doom evaporate from around her heart and can’t help but think that it is probably a very good thing that she feels that way. Gabriel had taught her that instinct could never be ignored and that she had particularly good instincts, that she should trust them over almost everything else. 

The angel is still attached to her ankle but she thinks she can get out of its grip. Something pulls just as she gets her ankle free and she falls almost over, hopping on her good foot. She knows she’s sprained something at the very least. 

It is sheer will that gets her back to the Impala, her ankle throbbing in time with her rapidly beating heart. It’s hard to believe no one saw her, although she thinks people were likely avoiding the whole area. She manages to get the Impala, lurching in her inability to move her left ankle, back to the motel and safety, stunningly without a scratch or even a close call. She’s pretty sure she has the luck of the gods with her on this one. Limping back into the hotel room, she can barely put pressure on the ankle and she really really hopes killing the ghost killed whatever sickness this is that Sam has. It takes a few tries but she gets the door open and she leans on the wall once she gets in. “Sam?” She says, almost panting. “Some help here would be… greatly appreciated.” 

Nothing greets her and she frowns. Sam should be up and around by now going by Bobby’s description. She inches further into the room, turning the corner. Sam’s laid out in the bed, still curled up a little and snoring. She hops up to the bed and puts a hand to his forehead. He’s.. Cold. Not dead cold, he’s breathing, but he’s cold and shivering still. If it had been the ghost he should have gotten better immediately, right? 

She doesn’t know what to do but she really really does not want to explain to another hunter that she’s never met what’s going on, she does not trust others, and she knows, something tells her gut that she won’t be able to get along with whoever would show up, that if they ever found out what happened to her, how she came to be around, there would be blood to pay and she really really does not feel like dealing with that. 

But what else is there to do? She sits on the bed and just lets go, the tears welling up, spilling over and she can not stop them. Her body is shaking and her lips are trembling and she can barely hold herself in a sitting position. Her arms are clutching her sides and she does not know how to handle it. 

The thought slips out before she can stop it, prayers winging their way from her thoughts out through the universe. Gabriel. Help. 

“What’s up chica?” Gabriel is there in under five seconds and Jess sobs harder. “Shit, I can fix it!” Gabriel is fluttering over, seemingly oblivious to the unconscious lump behind her as he touches her ankle, a burning warmth shooting through it before subsiding and the pain subsiding with it as well.

Tears are flowing and she can feel the tracks of salt drying on her cheeks, her eyes puffy, her nose running. She can’t imagine how awful she looks but Gabriel’s looking at her as if she is still as lovely as ever and she smiles around the tears, genuinely happy to see her friend again after a few weeks absent. “I’m sorry, Gabriel, but..” Jess loses her smile. “Sam. He won’t wake up. And I had to kill a ghost attached to a statue and I’m not sure I did it properly because he is still sick, he’s still freezing and the doctors won’t be able to do anything.” 

Gabriel nods. “Never knew a man who could find trouble like Sam Winchester could!” He says with a grin and a snap that makes Jess smile through her tears. 

“I”m sorry to ask this of you Gabriel, I know it’s hard to see him,”

“That’s why I brought you back, don’t have to look at him if I can look at you instead, right, hot stuff?” He winks. Jess sighs. Gabriel still seems pained to talk about what happened and Sam is still furious with Gabriel. 

She giggles for Gabriel’s sake, the sound forlorn and empty even to her ears. “Gabriel, I’m sorry for whatever it was that Sam did,” she starts and Gabriel shakes his head at her. 

“Don’t,” He says tone heavy with meaning. “I’ll heal him, I want him whole and well but I know he won’t be happy about it so you need to keep my presence a secret.”

“But-“ Jess starts before realizing that he is right. Sam would not be happy to learn that Gabriel had been in the same room again, would not be happy to be in the man’s debt. Something is leading her, wanting her to fix what Sam and Gabriel have, which does not make any sense because she loves Sam, always has and knows Sam loves her past self, is well on his way to loving her now, still loving her but. Well Sam and Gabriel are unfinished. She wonders what she’s thinking, wondering what is going on. “Ok,” she finally accedes. “I understand. I won’t tell Sam.” He nods and understands and stands, putting his hand on Sam’s shoulder before turning him and putting it on his chest instead, as if he had some distaste for the shoulder for some reason. 

“Avert your eyes, this could potentially be painful for you if you watch,” Gabriel says with a frown. “I need to use my grace.” 

Jess turns her head, studying the wall, she cannot see the two even out of the corner of her eye but never the less, she sees the glow that pulses out briefly. 

Gabriel is standing there, looking at the sleeping man and Jess yearns, her heart reaching for what she is not yet sure of. She just wants. She had not realized when she said yes just how complicated her life would get. 

“I miss you, Gabriel,” she finally says, quietly. 

He looks up at her, golden eyes deep, open and yet still shadowed; she knows she could look at those eyes as long as he let her. She wonders if that’s part of the archangel draw he exudes without trying. Perhaps, she thinks. She blinks and they’re standing in the parking lot and she has her keys in her hand. 

“What?” She finally says. 

“Sam’s sleeping, but I am not sure he’ll be sleeping much longer.” Is Gabriel’s only response. She does not know what to say to that so she shrugs and runs forward without giving it a thought, instead just flinging her arms around Gabriel, hugging him, her best friend. 

Best friend. That is a strange word to have for an archangel, God’s messenger of all angels. For her, he had always been the most famous, since her parents had not been particularly devout christians, instead just paying more attention to the Christ story around Christmas. She giggles into Gabriel’s neck and twitches slightly so she pulls away. 

“What’s funny?” 

Jess smiles. “You’re my best friend and I was realizing how crazy that sounds since you’re an archangel. You’re God’s messenger and you’re one of the most well known angels out there and I’m calling you my best friend.” She laughs as she saying this, though her smile falters slightly at the end, nerves catching her and she adds, “if that’s ok. I’m sorry, I guess that was slightly presumptuous.”

“No, fine!” Gabriel says with a funny look on his face. “And really, God’s messenger, hard job, not many benefits.” 

“Like what?” Jess asks, missing times like this. He had so many stories. 

“Like Michael thinking he could tell me to tell everyone something, bossed me around like no other. I was Dad’s messenger, not his so I learned all the different ways to get under his skin. He’s not fully insane, just..” 

“What do you mean?” 

“He's full of himself, thinks he’s the man, he’s the best, no one better. After all he’s Dad’s ‘good’ son who wants to do everything Dad says. Except, in the end, he’s hardly better than Lucifer.” 

Jess shudders. “How did you deal with it?” She finally asks. “How did you deal with those two going at it?” 

“I didn’t, I ran. I couldn’t have my brothers fighting, I loved them. Don’t get me wrong, I love Michael and Lucifer, they are loyal to each other, loyal to angels, but.. Well, it is really hard to get them to agree on anything and they would never pay me any attention and Raphael let himself get far too caught up in Michael’s plans. He always did follow directives well enough.” Gabriel shakes his head. “I could not decide what ‘side’ I should be on, I didn’t want to pick sides, so I didn’t. I ran. I became what you know as Loki.”

“You were Loki!” Jess starts with this news. It makes sense, it fits with his personality, with what she’s learned of how he lived his life prior to being with Sam, prior to when he died protecting the Winchesters. 

Gabriel gives her a funny look. “Yes and you’re Jessica Moore whose parents sometimes called her Jessie. It’s just a name.”

“Oh stop being coy, Gabriel. Loki was awesome!” Jessica grins. 

“If you say so. I didn’t have all those kids. That was all on the humans telling the stories about me.” Gabriel rolls his eyes. 

“Ok, Can we do this again?” She asks. "Not the Sam being sick part thought."

“You know how to find me. Just.. When Sam isn’t around right now, please,” Gabriel says. “I.. Would find it too easy to pull his strings and he wouldn’t handle that well right now.” 

“Why?” Jess asks. Gabriel’s face wrenches and Jess wonders what exactly happened but before she can even open her mouth, Gabriel disappears. “Fine!” she shouts into the parking lot. “Gabriel, I know you can hear me and I want you to know how much of a giant jerk you are, that I think you are probably the most ridiculous ass hole ever and you should get over yourself.” She ignores the stare of the little old asian lady walking down the street and turns back into the motel room, unlocking the door and closing it behind her, reveling in the sensation of her unbroken ankle. 

She has so many things to be thankful for, she knows this. “Jess?” a sleepy murmur comes from the room, followed by a rustle of a quilt. She rushes forward to see Sam propping himself up on his elbows and rubbing at his eyes with his free hand. 

“Sam, oh thank god.” She flings herself on him and he wraps his arms around her. He always knew exactly how to hold her and it has made her incredibly grateful for that. She tucks her head into his neck and he tightens his grip on her, rolling them so she’s lying on her side and she lets him wrap himself around her, lets herself be enveloped. Almost no one else could do that, she had never had that feeling before she started dating him, since most people were about her height, not five inches taller than her.


	19. Chapter 19

The knock on the door startles both of them and Sam’s hand goes to the knife he has on the table that he has been cleaning their weapons on. She shakes her head. “Pizza, remember?”

He nods, hand sliding away but staying within reach. “Just.. Check through the peek hole first.” He reminds her and she grins. 

“Of course!” She goes to the door to see a pizza man standing there, normal eyes and she thinks its probably just a normal pizza man. Even so, she mutters christo as she opens the door. The boy just gives her a strange look, so she gives him the twenty tells him to keep the change and takes the pizza. When she turns on the TV and goes to on demand, Sam makes a protest but Jess rolls her eyes. “Just the free movies, I swear,” Jess says in reassurance. 

He doesn’t have to know that Gabriel made them free for them only. Sam gets up, puts the computer down. She looks up from where the opening credits were just starting to load and pauses. “What’s up?” She asks. 

“I’m going to the library, I’ve just realized they have a whole section of books I don’t have access to otherwise and it could have something on purgatory,” Sam says. 

“Really? Now?” Jess frowns. 

“What? Dean’s stuck there,” Sam starts and Jess nods. 

“Yeah, I know and Sam, I know we need to get him out but is going to the library at seven pm the same day where you’re suddenly better after being so sick as to not be able to move the right decision?”

“I’m better now and when are we going to have another chance to have access to Stanford’s huge library?” Sam growls. 

“Uh, do we have to leave early tomorrow?” Jess frowns. “We could stay around a couple days, a week. Long enough for you to get what you need.” 

“I still need to go tonight. The sooner I find the information, the faster I can get Dean out and that needs to happen as soon as possible. He is in purgatory, remember?”

“I remember Sam,” Jess says with a sigh. “Look, I’ll join you tomorrow morning, ok?” She takes a bite of the pizza, enjoying the slide of grease and salt and carbs that she does not usually allow herself to have. “I just.. I need an evening of sloth and gluttony. Sam looks at her funny and she realizes she’s just started using the terms of Heaven uses to refer to human vices. It is the the first time that she has done so. “Whatever,” she finally says. 

“Ok, I’ll try and be back before midnight,” Sam says, dropping a kiss on the crown of her head and she smiles up at him, glad he hadn’t made too much of an issue. 

“Great. I’ll try to stay awake, but no guarantees,” Jess says. She turns back to the tv as Sam exits the room and she hears the rumble of the Impala start up moments later. 

Gabriel. no sooner than she thinks it and he pops up in front of her and she blinks blearily. “That was fast,” She finally says and he climbs wordlessly into the bed with her, curling up with her and she responds in kind. 

“I missed you,” she says and he pats her head. 

She takes that to mean that he did too. “I put the Avengers on. Sam’s out at the library. So far I think this movie Loki is a far bigger dick than you ever were,” she rolls her eyes. 

“I’m funnier,” Gabriel deadpans. 

*  
Gabriel starts popping in to visit her when Sam’s out doing research on whatever hunt they’re on or going for a run. He never stays long, but she’ll take what she can get. 

It is very different to travel continuously with someone than to live with them, she finds out. Sam is stoic, but he’s also caring and even on the long drives between states, they always stop in some neat town to eat lunch or dinner. It’s a nice break, because otherwise, he’s become more focused on rescuing his brother and she wonders if her being here is just a reminder of who isn’t.

Currently they are visiting Elon University in North Carolina to spend time with a Religious Studies professor whose focus is on Purgatory and its significance. 

"Excuse me," she interrupts, "but can you explain the Leviathans again?"

“Leviathans are… well, they were created by God before humans but they were flawed; ruthless and lustful after power. It took nearly all the angels to get rid of them." Sam flinches and Jess squeezes his hand.“But it became a repository for the souls as you could refer to the monsters who are killed who go to purgatory. Human souls go too, but it’s rare.”

“If an angel is killed, would it go to purgatory?” Jess asks for a moment. “Theoretically, of course,” she says after a pause when the professor looked at her oddly. She is fairly confident this professor is an atheist which makes this entire scenario even more hilarious since she knows God exists, even if she/he has disappeared. 

“I am not sure, there is no scripture or text on what happens if an angel dies. Do you think angels can die?” He asks her and Jess widens her eyes. “Well if monsters can die why can't angels?” 

“That is a very good question,” the man says and Jess grins in spite of herself. 

“Perhaps angels can die, but since Angels are composed of Grace, I have to wonder if their Grace would remain in a solid enough piece to even be transported to purgatory. Wouldn't their Grace be scattered to the far reaches of the galaxy and beyond?” The man asks and Jess frowns. 

She'll have to ask Gabriel about that. Because Castiel is in purgatory and he could be a different problem to get out than Dean. She knows God seems to favor Castiel. He’d been killed and brought back to life at least twice; Sam had told her the other night when she had woken him from a nightmare he was thrashing, almost killing her. It was a good thing Gabriel taught her self defense or she might have found herself pinned to the bed in a choke hold by Sam from being woken up. Perhaps in the future she would poke him with a stick instead. 

“What else do you know about what might exist in purgatory?” Sam asks. 

“Only what the texts have spoken to. It is a dark and dreary place, full of dangers but impossible to truly be killed, instead living in a liminal state of pain and suffering. Humans can be in but it tends to be filled with monsters who have it in for the humans who are usually dispatched pretty quickly to one part of purgatory or sent off to hell usually although sometimes some of the lucky bastards get to go to heaven.

“Now, Professor bear with me, but theoretically, if someone is say, transported on the energies of a monster being sucked back into purgatory, well, does that mean they are dead or are they living beings who are magically stuck in purgatory?”

“That is an interesting conundrum,” the man says, rubbing a hand over his chin’s stubble. Jess touches Sam’s shoulder closest to her and she thinks that perhaps Sam cannot hear anything but good news right now. Or at least he deserves to have some hope. They have spent the last two months after Stanford driving around the country to follow the leads that had been given to them, leads that were sometimes useful, giving them constructive information on purgatory and sometimes dead ends where Jess feels crushed because they had spent a couple days driving to get to the place only for there to be nothing at all of use. 

She wishes that Dean were not trapped in purgatory, she wishes Sam knew how to let go, she wishes she knew what she wanted. She wants Sam, but she has to admit that Gabriel dropping by is fulfilling something else in her, is fulfilling more in her. She doesn’t know if that means she’s an awful person but she’s pretty sure Sam is screwed up and has been for years and Gabriel’s been screwed with so much too that he is just as messed up as the two of them, possibly more. She knows it was Sam and Dean who convinced Gabriel to help when he'd tried to stay out of it and then it got him killed. She wonders how he could possibly ever have forgiven the two of them and come around. She still doesn’t know how Sam and Gabriel found their way into each others’ arms. 

As they are sitting in the coffee shop down the street from their motel room, Jess stares at Sam, studies his face as he stares into his coffee. He looks up too soon and she blinks and pastes a smile on her face. He narrows his eyes and she smiles even broader. 

“What's on your mind?” he finally asks. 

“How did you start dating Gabriel?” Jess asks. 

“I don’t want to talk about him,” Sam states and looks back at his coffee. Jess rolls her eyes. 

“Come on Sam, you have to open up about it at some point, the man was obviously a big part of your life and he brought me back to life and I know he still loves you.”

“Wait..” Sam frowns and Jess freezes. “You see Gabriel?” 

“I..” Jess starts, wanting to deny it, wanting to keep her time with Gabriel separate, free of the drama between the two. “Look,” she says with growing worry, not wanting to lie to Sam at all ever. “I know you have trouble saying his name and you have trouble talking about whatever it is, but I spent a couple months with him and he is my best friend right now and I need to spend time with someone besides you for once, someone who understands you but is not you.” 

Sam frowns harder and she hadn’t realized that was possible, but with Sam, she shouldn’t be surprised. 

“Say something, Sam,” She finally says after taking a large swig of her tea. 

“I can't argue with that,” He finally mutters. “I don’t, I don’t like it, but, um, obviously you have some kind of bond with him, with Gabriel,” This is the first time he’s said Gabriel’s name without wincing since she’s started traveling with Sam. That’s a start that Jess will take. “So, um, I guess, I just.. I would rather not see him as much right now, so do whatever it was that you were doing now so I don’t see him. But.. Tell him thanks again for bringing you back and that I am glad you gave me that support that he couldn’t.”

Sam is talking about Gabriel and hinting around what caused him the pain and suffering and refusal to mention him, mention his name when he came up. Well perhaps not quite hinting around but at least recognizing what Gabriel has given to Sam even when the two are no longer together. Jess breathes deeply, it feels like she’s had a weight lifted off her shoulders.


	20. Chapter 20

Jess and Sam are in Martin Tennessee. Bobby had called them the other day a day or two after they had finished another case where they ended up hunting a demon who was murdering randomly. Someone’s wife had disappeared into the woods and reappeared five days later claiming that she had been forced to be the wicked witch to hansel and gretel. No one had believed her until two little kids had wandered dazedly out of the woods the next day not remembering their names but they had a half loaf of bread with them and they had said that a witch had tried to eat them. Everyone was promptly hospitalized in the mental ward. 

They had arrived another day later and the woman was the most coherent. Sam’s current though process was that there was some kind trickster at work. 

“Why is it a trickster?” Jess asks. 

“This is exactly what they do." Sam's teeth are clenched and Jess frowns. 

“But isn’t the only trickster you have ever met is Gabriel?” She asks. 

“Yes, but that does not mean there aren't other tricksters out there. Gabriel was probably the best out there and he didn't die like tricksters are supposed to but he turned out to be an archangel." If its just a trickster, a bloody stake to the heart should kill it.

“How did you meet Gabriel,” Jess asks. 

“He was pretending to be a janitor…” Sam trails off frowning at her and she remembers they have gone over this. 

“When did you realize he wasn’t normal?” Jess looks up and trails her finger down his face. 

“When we saw him the third time,” he says, smiling down at her.

“What was the second time?” Jess asks, confused. 

“When Gabriel killed Dean two hundred some odd times.” Sam shakes his head, the crease between his eyes reappearing. 

“Tell me about it,” she finally says, leaning into him. 

“We went to this town in Florida after a professor disappeared in this town with this place called Mystery Spot so we were trying to figure out what was going on and then Dean goes and dies and thirty seconds later I’m sitting up in my motel room and the same song I woke up to before is playing and then Dean is alive again and so I wonder if I just had a dream but I didn’t, because a couple hours later, he dies by piano dropping on him.”

“A piano?” Jess says. She wonders if it is possible that she heard wrong but by Sam’s expression she knows she heard correctly. 

“I killed him with an axe when I was destroying the mystery spot one night,” Sam admits, lips twitching and Jess feels a giggle bubble up out of her. 

“How did you figure out it was the trickster?” she asks. 

“We went to a diner every morning for breakfast and one day one of the other patrons changed exactly how he did something. Up until then every single one of them had done everything the same. I think Gabriel had gotten tired of me not figuring out what was going on. 

“When I got up and went after him, he pretended for a good minute to be an innocent business man. Dean thought I was insane. He did for the most part because he had no memory of dying every day, had no idea that we were repeating the days.” Sam shakes his head. “And I did look like a crazy man, holding up a random business man against a chain link fence but he had changed how he did something so I knew it was him, I knew that it had to be something supernatural. That it was Gabriel specifically, surprised me because we thought we had killed him. That was when I first wondered if he was only a trickster since tricksters are killed by a stake soaked in blood.” Sam shrugs and Jess nods. 

“So, how did you figure out who it was the next time?” She asks. 

“The hulk smashed his way through a house and killed a man known for his ability to fly into a rage and abuse his wife. There was a hole in the door that was the right size for a hulk. It matched the trickster’s sense of humor so we figured it was worth a try to get him on our side on the apocalypse. He was very powerful for a trickster and he was one of the most powerful beings we had ever gone up against. But he set out a fake police alarm, drew us to a warehouse outside of town and as soon as we walked in, we were in an episode of Doctor Sexy MD.”

“Doctor Sexy MD?” 

“It’s Dean’s favorite TV show. He won’t admit it since it is such a girly dramatic tv show but he watched it all the time when he was around. He was ecstatic for a few minutes until we..” Sam trails off, corrects himself. “He figured out that it wasn’t actually Doctor Sexy, that it was the Trickster.” Sam shrugs. “It was funny to watch Gabriel shove Dean off him as if he were pushing a piece of paper. He stuck us in shows and ads that amused him and told us when he met us in Doctor Sexy that we had to learn to play our roles there so we would play our roles in the external world, otherwise we'd be stuck in game world forever. 

"He was stronger than Cas, that was when we knew something was up.” Sam’s eyes are unfocused and wild a little but Jess knows she is just thinking about that time where he was stuck in tv land with Dean. 

“What were some of the shows he stuck you in?” she finally asks. 

Sam wrinkles his nose, doesn't answer and Jess sighs in sympathy. It has to be hard, to be forced to mock your own life. 

“How did you end up with Gabriel after he did this all?” Jess says. 

“Because he kissed me, he chose me and he showed up when Dean and Castiel weren’t there and I was about a matchstick away from losing it all, falling even more to pieces and just not quite sure how I was going to do anything successfully.”

“What sent Dean and Castiel to purgatory?” Jess wonders why her questions are so random, she wishes she could get a better longer story out of Sam. 

“Leviathan,” Sam says, rubbing his eyes. “I thought we were getting rid of just the leader but since we got rid of the leader it got a lot easier to just get rid of any old leviathans because they no longer had a leader organizing them.”

“How in the world did Leviathans get into this world? You never did say.” Jess wonders when her life became an example of experiencing all the nightmares parents told their children to keep them in line at night. 

“They were, until Castiel, in his fight for power with Raphael, decided to use all the souls from Purgatory to kill Raphael and kill all the angels who worked against him. He worked with Crowley,” 

“Who is…” Jess trails off. 

“King of Hell. He was king of the crossroads but he was a sneaky scottish bastard and he made the failed apocalypse work to his benefit.” Sam rolls his eyes. “I just wish we could have iced the bastard when we had the chance.”

“You had the chance?” 

“Bobby sold his soul to help us. Crowley claimed it was a temporary thing but reneged on his deal. We, well, Bobby figured out a way to get Crowley to give them back. Crowley’s son gave us Crowley’s grave location and we went out there and salted and poured gasoline over the bones while Bobby told Crowley to forfeit the contract, give back his life.”

Jess raises her eyebrows. It’s not many who can outsmart a demon, much less the king of hell, she is pretty sure. Of course, if anyone could, it would be Bobby Singer. 

“Anyways, Castiel was working with Crowley two years ago because I was in hell, or at least my soul was in hell and Dean had run away, had run to Lisa and I think Castiel was broken hearted over that loss but he also knew Dean was keeping his promise to me and stayed away.” 

“But if it’s a war in heaven, what could you have done?” Jess asks. “There’s nothing you all could have done,” 

“It didn’t have to come to getting souls from purgatory,” Sam points out. “It was a betrayal of the highest order and I think Dean couldn’t believe the one man besides his brother and pseudo father figure that he had trusted without reserve was betraying him. It lead to Castiel accidentally taking the leviathans into his vessel and he could barely contain them, he started burning through his vessel and he knew that he had to turn them back to purgatory. Death helped us re open the portal and Castiel threw everything back into purgatory, except the leviathans held on in Castiel’s body.” 

Sam isn’t saying something about this time but Jess finds that she thinks she does not want to know. “So what happened?”

“Eventually, we found Cas again but he and Dean got sucked into purgatory."


	21. Chapter 21

“What was your relationship with Gabriel like?” Jess asks. They’re driving around Martin Tennessee, looking for somewhere, anywhere to eat that has something involving vegetables to eat, their second day in town. Nothing has happened so far and the library is tiny, not open often and one of the sole places to get wifi in this town. Which mean they can’t research nearly as much as they would like; they are running blind, barely know where to start beyond asking the victims’ relatives and looking at police reports. Which is a lot, but she has a feeling Sam is going to want to at least have some kind of information before rushing head long into a confrontation with whoever or whatever this is. She does at least, and they don’t even know where to look yet. 

“Surprising,” Sam says after a moment and Jess glances over. He’s not nearly as tense as he has been in the past when she mentions him and right now, it looks rather like Sam’s remembering the good. “Like.. He knew I didn’t love the sappy stuff most of the time. A side effect of being around Dean most of my life, I guess, but he would still bring me sandwiches when I needed them most, come whirling in claiming that he was way too busy and then stay and watch a movie with me because he somehow knew I was lonely and standing at the edge of a cliff.”

It sounds wonderful to Jess and rather exactly like the Gabriel she’s always experienced. “I”m glad he was here for you when you needed it,” Jess squeezes his shoulder in what she hopes is sympathy.

“Me too,” Sam admits after a moment. “He got me to laugh, like you did. Probably why I fell in love with you on our first date,” He continues and Jess makes a startled noise in the back of her throat. “I- You didn’t know that?” Sam is looking at her, bewildered. 

She shakes her head, unable to speak over the lump in her throat. Clearing it, she looks out of the window and wonders how she and Sam are so lucky to have each other.

“I, um, if you want to hang out with Gabriel while I”m around, that’s ok,” Sam says as they pull into what looks like a promising lunch place. 

“Really?” Jess says brightly. She sits up and smiles over at Sam. 

“Yeah. I guess.” 

*  
Sam is gone and Jess is sprinting as fast as she can, trying to outrun a trickster, a supernatural being who has the ability to teleport, apparently. She skids to a near stop and turns head long down a different path, stake in hand, useless if she can’t get a shot in at him and she is really really afraid she can’t. And what if she kills him and Sam’s stuck wherever it is this trickster put him. This Bamapana. He is fast and he knows his way to piss off people against each other. Of course he does, Jess figures. He also knows how to disgust people, knows how to make sure he is reviled the world around. 

She barely has a moment to blink before she’s on the ground, her toe having caught on an elevated piece of pavement. She scrabbles, pushing up with her hands before she is slammed back into the ground, fetid breath filling her nose as Bamapana practically lies on top of her, talks raspily into her ear. “Nice try girl, but I ain’t going nowheres, not yet, I ain’t ready. Aside, Gotsta get me some of what you got goin’ on,” He thrusts against her and she inches the stake back into her grip, relaxes into his hold, just like Gabriel taught her. She manages to twist quickly and in the same move drives the stake straight into Bamapana’s heart. She knows, even as the tears start flowing (partly because of the stink), that this is what Sam would want her to do, kill the monster before he kills or traumatizes anyone else, no matter the cost to himself. He’s coughing up blood and she squirms, manages to roll him off so at least the stench is a little farther away. It takes another minute before the damn thing dies, her stake sticking out of his chest. She tries to sit up but can’t and now it just feels like she’s been hit by a bus except where her waist meets her legs. She can’t feel anything there. 

There’s a shimmering light by the end of the alley and then Sam is stumbling into her sight and she sighs, just a wisp of breath, but it’s enough, he’s whipping around, racing towards her, lanky legs and arms akimbo in a way she hasn’t seen since they were in college. He falls to her side and leans over her, one hand cupping her cheek, the other seems to be angled so as to be pressing on her, but she can’t feel it. 

“Jess, jess, no, no, no, I can fix this, we can fix this,” He’s mumbling and Jess tries, tries, to tell him it’s ok, it really, really is, but he’s not looking at her anymore, instead is just pulling out his phone and dialing. She doesn’t really want to listen, so she doesn’t, instead she studies the way his sideburns end. He really should perhaps shave them a little more, they are rather.. Strong. And his eyelashes, they’re, well, magnificent is the only word she can think of that comes close to describing them. His hands are gorgeous too, actually. Sam is beautiful and not just on the outside, though honestly? He is fucking gorgeous. Hot. Delicious. Yummytastic. 

“Did you see?” She finally mumbles when Sam’s done with the phone call. “I ganked the bastard as you’d say.” 

“Yeah,” Sam laughs, something wet in the back of his throat and there’re tears shining. Why are there tears shining? “Yeah, baby, I saw, you were amazing.” 

“Of course I was,” She rolls her head to glance at the dead trickster and wonders how they’re going to explain the wooden stake. “Stake?” She finally asks and Sam seems to see what she’s asking. 

“Oh, don’t worry about it, we’ll get another one, later. They’re really easy to make. Dean had me making them when I was eight,” Sam says with a false cheery grin. 

“S’wrong?” Jess frowns, struggling to push herself up. 

“No, no, don’t you worry, you’ve just got a mosquito bite, we’re gonna go to the doctor, figure out what’s wrong,” Sam says. 

“Ok,” Jess says, flopping backwards, letting Sam guide her head back down. It occurs to her that she should be more concerned about not being able to move, but she thinks its probably because she’s in shock. She knows enough to realize that she’s purposefully blocking something out but she isn’t pushing too hard at the barrier, she doesn’t want to feel what it is. 

There are sirens coming closer and Sam’s babbling at her, probably trying to keep her alert and awake, but she can feel the shock settling deeper into her bones, can feel sleep coming for her. The ambulance pulls in and Jess sees two rather unfamiliar faces hovering over her, moving her around but she can’t be bothered, not really.


	22. Chapter 22

This isn’t Heaven. Jess thinks she ought to know, she’s spent enough time there. It’s not even the waiting room. In fact, it looks kind of like the hotel room they were in just a little while ago, this morning. And her feet exist again. Considering that she had not an iota of an idea if they existed the last time she had been conscious, she considers that a significant improvement. 

Not that it would take much to improve upon lying in shock in a pool of her own blood, paralyzed. She remembers that now, remembers that now. She stretches her toes, shifts her legs around in the sheets that feel… much more luxurious than they had just yesterday. Turning her head, she sees Sam and.. Well, now. Gabriel is here. They’re standing outside the window of the room, perhaps a foot away from each other, both of them with their serious faces on (Sam’s is more recognizable) and Gabriel reaches up, tucks hair behind Sam’s ear and Jess can’t find it in herself to be jealous. 

She wants Sam, desperately, forever; she gave up heaven to be with him, but her time with Gabriel changed her, made her stronger in a way that she didn’t know she could be. It gives her the strength to see what Sam and Gabriel refuse to talk about. They don’t touch, not more than a grasping of hands, but even here she can see the tension, she could cut it with a knife, as her mother always liked to say. 

It doesn’t bother her, it hasn’t, not since the beginning. She’s been trying to get them back together, to what? Exclude her? 

Some part of her knows what she wants, but the rest of her brain hasn’t caught up. She knows Sam loves her, but she can see and feel that Sam loves Gabriel too and she doesn’t want to leave, she doesn’t want to give him up, but she doesn’t want to keep him apart from Gabriel. 

She slides her feet to the ground, is walking across the room in her pjs (someone must have changed her) and out the door before she has a second to wonder if this is a bad decision (what decision?). She swings around to see Sam startle and Gabriel turn with a grin. 

Without a second to hesitate, she leans in, kisses Gabriel square on the mouth, pulling away before he even gets a response and smiles brilliantly at him. “Thanks, Gabe,” and knows he doesn’t need to ask for what. It’s rather obvious, since she’s standing and walking around. Knowing Sam, he’s probably wondering when he should pack his bags and leave them to it, heart breaking. She rolls her eyes at the thought and turns back to him with a quirk of the lips before leaning up (she’s so grateful that she’s only five inches shorter than him, that she isn’t dwarfed by him and they don’t have to fumble with the height differences to kiss) and brushing her lips over his. 

Drawing back, she stares him right in the eyes and says loudly and clearly “I love you, Sam, but you two need to kiss and make up before I drown under all the tension” before turning and walking away. They can talk about it another time, but she hopes she put the right thoughts into their brains. 

“Hey! Jess!” It’s Gabriel running after her ten minutes later as she stands on the pedestrian bridge over the local highway, watching the cars. If she had given it any thought, she would have assumed it would have been Sam, wanting to talk it out. 

She stops as she reaches the busy road with its under developed sidewalk that has cracks in uneven places and grass growing through it. Gabriel catches up with her and she starts walking again, simply enjoying being outside. Gabriel is, for once, silent as he keeps pace to her side, feet scuffing through the ratty mixture of dirt, broken pavement, rocks and scraggly tufts of crab grass. 

It’s perhaps ten minutes later as they’re walking down the sidewalk, which has gone from the unused decrepit piece of concrete to a new even sidewalk, big box stores popping up with increasing frequency, that Gabriel slips his hand into hers, lacing their fingers together. Jess jumps slightly and wonders why it feels more natural normal than anything, except Sam holding her, than she’s ever felt. They continue walking, still silent, passing the KFC, the marshalls in this podunk town with the large shopping area separated from the downtown. 

“I know you’re in love with Sam,” Jess says, faltering slightly. Gabriel is silent, does not deny it. It’s hard to remember this being who she’s spent months getting to know is an archangel. “But I love him too and, I think-“

Gabriel’s fingers tighten around hers, cutting her off. “I don’t want to take him from you,” Gabriel says honestly. “You had him first.”

“I don’t care who had Sam first,” Jess responds, slanting a glance over at the archangel. “Why can’t we share him? Why can’t we- why not-“ Jess stumbles, searching for the right words. 

“Oh,” Gabriel says and Jess has never been gladder that she’s best friends with an archangel who can know what she is trying to say without her trying to find the right words. “Oh,” he breathes, “I see.” 

“Yeah,” Jess sweeps her hair around onto her shoulder, running her fingers through the ends. Gabriel stops, tugging on her hand and she turns back to him. He’s in her space and then his other hand is on the curve where her waist swells to her hips and he’s leaning up and kissing her. She responds, letting him in, succumbing to the emotions that have been hovering around the edges of her consciousness. 

Only when some teenager yells out at them, whistling, does Jess remember that they are standing on the side of a road with a large parking lot and a busy road on either side of them. Drawing back, she tucks an errant lock of hair behind Gabriel’s ear and smiles, biting her lip a little. “Hey,” she mumbles since Gabriel seems intent on memorizing her features, though she knows that he probably doesn’t need to, since he brought her back from the dead. She ducks her head down a little to kiss him lightly and when she draws back, Gabriel’s started to frown. “What?” she finally asks, stomach knotting up, twisting around. 

“Why do I always have to be the shortest person?” Jess stares and then realizes: Gabriel’s pouting. 

“I’m so sorry you chose a short vessel and that Sam and I are lucky enough to have tall genes.” Jess knocks him lightly on the shoulder as they turn back towards the motel, hands still entwined. 

*

“So that’s it?” Jess has just walked into motel room with Gabriel, laughing over something Gabriel said and Sam is standing there, a strand of hair caught across his face, brown eyes cold, shoulders tense and Jess straightens automatically. She knows this Sam. She knows him well, he’s so familiar it makes her want to cry. It’s the little boy who assumes that everyone he loves leaves him, that they’re going to leave and never look back. 

“Stop being a giant lug head,” Jess says as she crosses over to him, drawing the stiff man into her arms. She rocks a little side to side, trying to get him to stop tensing so much and after a moment, he relents slightly, becomes a little more pliant. “Didn’t you hear me earlier? I love you very very much, Sam, but there’s no way you and Gabriel are done. I thought..” She trails off, runs a hand down Sam’s jacket lapel. “I thought there might be something here, between all of us.” She looks up, keeping her expression as open as possible; she knows Sam, knows it’s easier when she shows how she feels. 

“What, what are you saying?” 

“I believe the closest term for it is polyfidelity” Gabriel is lounging on the bed, feet stretched out in front of him and ice cream sundae in hand. He’s already got a smear of pinkish looking melted ice cream to the left of his mouth and Jess wants to kiss it off him. “So why don’t you?” Gabriel says looking at her, golden eyes darkened with lust and she feels her cheeks heat. Sam huffs and she turns back to him. 

“Sam-“

“Gabe and I stopped dating for a reason, Jess,” Sam protests. He’s slipping sidelong glances at Gabriel, though, so Jess knows she’s on to something with her theory. 

“What, because you were so focused on getting your brother back, which, by the way, we are going to work on, I promise, babe, that you couldn’t take a moment away just to be grateful to have an archangel not only on your side but who genuinely loves you?” When she sees his face, her heart stutters, perhaps she was too harsh with him, even if it was the truth. 

“I-“ Sam stumbles. “I don’t even know, Jess, what?” Sam’s not making sense and Jess giggles a little, she runs a hand down his arm and leans up to kiss his cheek. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to silence you, Sam!” Jess smiles easily and grabs his hand, brings him to sit down. He collapses next to her, legs wooden. She leans into him, cards her free hand through his long silky hair; he really should get a hair cut. She tugs his head down, kisses him, licking her way into his mouth. She feels the moment he relents, gives in, his hands shift, suddenly cupping her face, letting go of her hand to guide her into his lap, she follows easily enough, swinging a leg over his, rubs against him and keens low in her throat. She breaks away and slides a glance to her side. Gabriel’s sitting up now, ice cream sundae gone and she reaches out, pulls him in; there’s a smear of ice cream still there and she licks her way up his cheek, feeling Sam’s hands balance her, ground her. 

She lets go of Gabriel, who is on his knees, eyes blown wide with lust now. She smiles, knowing she’s done this to him, done it to an archangel. She looks back at Sam to find his eyes alight, curious. “See?” she whispers. “This, we can make this work.” Sam nods, a feverish jerking of his head. 

It’s hours later as Jess lies there, a sleepy smile curving her lips, Gabriel holding her as he sat against the headboard, Sam sprawled, loose limbed next to them, head buried into Gabriel’s side, that she realizes this feels like home.


	23. Chapter 23

Hunting becomes even easier when it’s regularly the three of them, Jess finds out. Of course, Gabriel has to disappear occasionally. When he’d been brought back, Heaven had changed without Michael’s presence. Gabriel was expected to put in more regular appearances, considering he was the last archangel to be alive. And not in hiding. That’s what Jess figured anyways. He’d be gone for a couple days and then he’d come back, spend a week with them, almost turning their hunts into jokes occasionally, especially the regular salt n’ burns.”

“Is this what it was like before?” Jess asks finally one afternoon as they’re driving south on I-91 in Vermont. The leaves are bright splashes of color and there’s a cold chill in the air that reminds Jess of her childhood. 

“What was like before?” Sam glances over her before turning his attention back to the road in front of them. 

“Gabriel basically cleaning up, like we don’t have to do any work?” Jess continues the darning she’d been working on; she’d ripped a giant hole in the seat of her jeans the other day when a ghost had tossed her into a wall and there’d been a rusty nail pretty much at butt level. It had hurt like the dickens. Gabriel had gone all archangel on them, glowing light and flashing sword. He’d healed her embarrassing injury but hadn’t done a thing about the rip in her pants, instead leering at her while both she and Sam rolled their eyes. 

“Oh. Yeah. I guess,” Sam says with a shrug. “I mean, he wasn’t around quite as much and he remembered a bit that I’ve only ever hunted, I needed something to keep me busy.” Sam taps his fingers along the wheel. That’s when Jess’ phone goes off. It had been one of the first thing Sam had done, gotten her a couple different phones. This one is playing Britney’s Hit me Baby one more time. Sam scowls and Jess rolls her eyes. So what if she likes being reminded of her early high school/late middle school era? Nostalgia is a perfectly healthy thing to engage in.

If Sam knew it was only Bobby who had that ringtone, he might find it funnier, Jess thinks. But she’s not about to tell him that, not when it’s much more fun to torture him with Britney Spears and her catchy tunes. “Hey Bobby,” She holds the phone to her ear as she rolls the window all the way closed. “What’s up?”

“Glad I caught ya, Listen, don’t say anything to Sam.. Are you with him right now?” His voice is grouchy as always and it’s quickly become something Jess relies on in the world. Nothing’s right if Bobby is happy or excited sounding. Any conversation with Bobby is best when it contains at least one ‘idjit’ she figures. 

“Yeah, Bobby,” Jess barely keeps herself from glancing over to Sam in what would have been the most tragically obvious way possible, instead packs the pants away and pulls out a notebook as if Bobby might be telling her about a hunt. 

“Ok. Well, don’t say anythin’ yet to him an’ call me back when you get away, ok?” Jess nods and then remembers that Bobby’s not able to see it. She’d blame it on being dead for eight years but she’s always been like this. 

“Ok Bobby. Thanks,” Jess says. 

“Right. Well, you should know, there’s a hunt in Hartford Connecticut. Garth’s on it but I think he’s in over his head, you mind checkin’ in on him? I’ll text you the exact location.” Bobby grumbles and Jess is glad she doesn’t have to lie too much to Sam now. 

“Understood, we’ll get right on it,” Jess glances over at Sam, smiles and doesn’t even bother writing anything down. After all, they’ll be getting an address via text. “What do you think we’re facing?” 

“Not sure, Garth’s not talking much, but it sounds like it might be a ghoul.” 

“Ok, Thanks Bobby. Talk to you soon. Sam sends his love,” Jess giggles as Bobby snorts and hangs up on her. Sam rolls his eyes. 

“What did he say?”

“Garth’s hunting what’s probably a ghoul down in Hartford. Think we’re the closest hunters and it sounds like he might need some help.” Jess digs out her jeans again. “You mind?” She finally asks. 

“It’s right on our way and it’s not like we’re going in any particular.” Sam shrugs. His shoulders are tense again and Jess cocks her head a little. 

“What happened?” She finally asks.

“Huh?” Sam frowns a little, lips curling. 

“You’re tense again. Did ghouls do something specific to you?” 

"I hate ghouls. they killed my younger brother." Sam doesn't notice her curious look, he's staring out over the road. "We didn’t find out until a couple years back, but we have another brother, Adam.” 

“Sam, I’m sorry-“

“Don’t be, I’m over it,” Sam says shortly and Jess rolls her eyes but lets Sam live his lie. “Anyways, we find out when he calls up. He didn’t even know we existed. Kinda figures, Dad wanted to keep his lives separate. His life I mean.” Sam adds as if she didn’t understand who he was talking about. 

“Turns out we never even met Adam Milligan.” There’s a pause and Sam’s mouth thins even more. “Not then at least. We met him a while later.” Jess doesn’t bother asking how, not yet. “The case my dad met Kate on was a couple of ghouls. He got a cop there to help him out. Apparently they weren’t as thorough as they should’ve been, two of the spawn got away, grew up with a grudge against the name Winchester and this cop.” Sam’s eyes are glassy but Jess doesn’t comment, shouldn’t comment. “So they come back, murder Adam’s mom, Adam too and then take his personas. We tested him too, but ghouls are hard to test, they aren’t reactive to nearly as much as some other monsters are.” Sam’s shoulders roll again and Jess quietly takes Sam’s free hand. 

“He got me unguarded, knocked me out and tied me up, bled me until I was nearly dead. I was really, really lucky Dean was able to get himself out of the grave he crawled into, looking for the clues, following the trail.”

He holds out his arm and there they are, thin white lines leading up his forearms and Jess shudders. There’s nothing to be said after that.


	24. Chapter 24

Jess hits send before she can think twice about it. The phone rings twice before Bobby’s gruff “What?’ fills her ear. 

“Sam’s out getting dinner and checking out the library,” Jess says. 

“Yeah?” 

She frowns, twirls the television remote in her free hand as she wanders around the room. “So whatever it was you called me about before?” Silence fills her ear for a moment and then Bobby exhales noisily. 

“Yeah, yeah. I just- Look, it’s about Dean.” Jess sinks onto the closest bed and it’s clear now why Bobby wanted to tell her. 

“You are such a chicken shit,” Jess says.

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say,” Bobby snaps and Jess breathes out a slight giggle. 

“Yeah but you want me to tell Sam, whatever it is.” Jess peers out the window before letting the curtain fall back in place with a sigh.

“I might’ve found a way to get Dean back." She can hear all the words Bobby ain't saying as she paces.

“Ok, are you going to tell me what this is?” 

“Not over the phone, I ain’t.” Bobby growls. “Just get Sam here when you can,” 

“Can you at least tell me no one will get hurt?” Jess asks. 

“Yeah, it’s.. Well, it’s easy enough, s’long as you can get that hyperactive archangel to help out.” 

“Yeah, that shouldn’t be an issue," Jess agrees. 

“Good. See you soon,” Bobby hangs up and Jess plugs her phone in to charge and goes back to checking her email and researching where her best friend from Stanford, Becky Pardone, had gone to after college. About an hour later, the door burst open and Sam walked in a handful of brown bags in hand, a chattering voice following him, a short skinny man with an excitable expression on his face entering the room. Sam looked.. Amused and annoyed at the same time. Jess rose, wiping her hands down her jeans. 

“You must be Garth,” She held her hand out and Garth shook it enthusiastically. 

“Yep! That’d be me! Sam here was telling me about how you died for eight years and came back because an archangel brought you back. What was that like?” Jess frowns, shoots Sam look and he shrugs, twitches his head in a way that Jess realizes means that no matter how annoying Garth might be, Sam trusts him. 

“Weird,” Jess finally says with a shrug. “First thing I knew about the supernatural was when our friend Brady threw me up on a ceiling and burned me alive once Sam was back.” 

“Ouch,” Garth says making a face. “What made you come back? Weren’t you in heaven?” 

“Sam,” Jess says simply with a small smile towards her partner. 

“Aww, that’s so sweet, Sam, look atcha, got yourself a beautiful gal who’ll leave heaven to be with you. How do you get so lucky, man?” Garth pouts and Jess giggles at Sam’s expression. 

*

“Gabriel,” Jess says as she steps out of the motel. They’re going to leave later this morning but she needed to go for a walk and Sam hadn’t wanted to. “I need to talk to you,” She continues walking, assuming Gabriel would find her. 

He does, five minutes later as she wanders down a suburban street. “What’s up, beautiful?” Gabriel says, standing in front of her and she leans in, shares a long kiss with him. 

“Missed you,” she draws back with a smile. 

“Well, if that’s the greeting I’m going to get every time I disappear for a couple days, I’ll have to do that more often!” Gabriel smiles and takes her hand again as they continue walking. 

“Bobby called,” Jess starts, unsure how to continue. 

“Bobby calls a lot. I think he’s lonely, you shouldn’t tell him I said that, I don’t want to be called an idjit” Gabriel raises his free hand, makes the quote signs at the last word. 

“Well, he actually called because of Sam.” Jess starts. “And Dean and Castiel,” she says after a moment. Gabriel pulls to a halt, nearly yanking Jess’ arm out of her socket. He’s staring at her with wide eyes.

“What?” She finally says with a frown. 

“Bobby found something?” Gabriel says. 

“Yes?” She bites her lip. “What’s.. Is there something wrong with that?”

“I’m an archangel and I know nothing about getting Dean and Castiel out of purgatory. How the hell did Bobby find something I didn’t already know?” Gabriel runs a hand through his hair. 

“Have you ever devoted your life to research, to learning more about the universe?” Jess asks. 

“Uh, no. Archangel? We’re born knowing everything.” He lifts his chin, trying his best to look down her but she knows him too well and it honestly just looks funny on him. 

So she smiles instead and shakes her head. “Gabriel, obviously you don’t know everything.” At the look of disbelief, she adds, “he did say you’d be able to help.”

“Sam must be happy.”

“That’s just it, Gabe, I haven’t told Sam yet..”

“Why?” Gabriel’s looking at her as if she’s from Pluto. 

“You know what he’s been like, looking for Dean. He just stopped digging so much a couple weeks ago. What if.. What if Bobby’s thing doesn’t pan out? What if, I don’t know, what if it works?” 

“What do you mean? We want it to work,” Gabriel says. 

“Yeah but.. Dean. Sam’s always talked about Dean, he missed him a lot in college, what if.. Dean used to be his hunting partner, what if he wants to go back? What if he wants to just hunt with Dean again?”

“What if he stops loving you? What if you stop loving him? What if the world stops turning tomorrow or Dad brings back Raphael and we have to fight to stop the apocalypse, again?” Gabriel raises a single eyebrow, serious as he could ever be. 

“Oh.” Jess says. “Oh, I see.” 

“Yep. I still love you, Dad still loves you and I'm fairly positive Sam still loves you. And just because you’re afraid of change doesn’t mean you can take away Sam’s choice. Dean and Castiel deserve to be freed from Purgatory.” 

Jess unlocks the motel door, drawing Gabriel in after her. Sam’s sitting at the sole table even as it tilts every time he shifts, the legs of the table uneven and slightly loose. “Sam,” she says. 

He waves a hand at her. “Jess, you gotta see this, there’s a news article about some swedish lady having sex with a skeleton.. Gabriel-“

“Here in the United States of America or Heaven unlimited for the last month. I haven’t even been to the Caribbean,” Gabriel whines. Sam rolls his eyes. 

“Sam, we have to talk.” Jess sits on the bed and Sam turns towards her, eyes wide, mouth in a straight line. He’s trying to hold tears back, she thinks. “No, not like that,” She stumbles over the words. 

“Jeeez, Sam, you two are a whole pile of insecure weirdos. I guess it’s no wonder I love the both of you,” Gabriel rolls his eyes. 

“Ok, what’s up?” His tone is even, quiet. 

“You know how Bobby called two days ago? Well he told me to call him back later," Jess starts. 

“Wait. What? Did he have another job for us?” Sam sits up, hand reaching for his computer and Jess shakes her head, aborting his movement. 

“No, no- you remember how we came here to Connecticut instead of Delaware?” 

“Yes?” Sam says. 

“I’m sorry!” She says as he curls into himself, hunching his shoulders. “It’s not- well, I. Um, it turns out he thinks he’s got a way to get Dean and Castiel out of Purgatory.” 

“I, WHAT? How? Why now? Where did he find this? Why aren’t we already heading for Bobby’s? Why didn’t you tell me before coming here?” Sam is up, shutting down his computer and Jess follows him, getting a hand on his elbow. 

“I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure how you’d react and I thought-“

“She thought you’d leave her,” Gabriel drawls. “Soon as you get your brother back, she’ll be thrown over. Ridiculous.” Gabriel raspberries at both of them. “Also, you need to stop being so focused on your brother, it’s not healthy.” 

Sam sits down on the bed again, runs a hand through his hair. “OK. Ok, what do we do?” He looks up at her, eyes slightly wild. “If there’s any way to get my brother back..”

“I know.” Jess runs a hand through his hair, smoothing it down. Gabriel’s sitting pressed up against his other side, offering silent comfort. “We’re going to get dinner here and we’re going to sleep in the motel we have already paid for and then tomorrow morning, we’ll wake up and get breakfast at that neat little coffee shop we saw and when we’re done, we will get in the impala and we will drive west towards Bobby’s.” 

“Ok,” Sam says and Jess realizes he sounds rather like a little boy.


	25. Chapter 25

Jess sighs as Bobby’s ramshackle house finally comes into sight, forlorn and alone among piles of rusted old car parts and a couple mean looking dogs. It had been a long day and a half getting here, the car full of silence that was louder than any of their conversations. Gabriel had, of course, tried to liven up the conversation but when Sam shut his jokes down with a twitch of lips (Gabriel called it bitch face #3) and she was having a hard time shrugging off Sam’s tension, the angel really didn’t have a shot. As soon as the car’s stopped, she gets out, walking hurriedly to the house, only to be met by Bobby. She hasn’t called him, surely he knew they were coming as quickly as they could. 

“Where ya been, ya idjits?” He yells and Jess has to force herself not to take a step back at his tone, curious before she remembers that Dean’s like a son to this man, he’s probably just as on edge as Sam has been since yesterday. 

“We were in Connecticut, Bobby,” Jess says, “We got here as fast as possible.”

“Yeah, sure, it takes 4 days to get here.” 

“Sorry, that’s my fault,” Jess admits. “I didn’t tell him until two days ago. I had to-“

“What? Sit on your ass?” 

“Stop being an ass, Bobby, we all know you love Dean. You were a better father, Dad knows,” Gabriel’s standing between the two, hands shoved in his jeans, shoulders low and Jess wants to bet he’s got his typical smirk in place. 

“What’re you doing here anyways?” Bobby glares. “Thought we'd have to trap you with Jess as bait. 

“Yeah, about that…” Sam steps forward, pulls Gabriel back, tugs on his hand and Jess nearly snickers at Bobby’s reaction. 

“What the hell, boy, I taught you better n’ that!” Bobby’s pointing a finger at Sam now. 

“Uh.. My father gave me the talk, I don’t think you ever did, Bobby?” Sam says. 

“Yeah, but he ain’t never told you to go on and screw over someone what came back from the dead for you.” Bobby pointedly looking at Jess at which point she flushes. 

“I didn’t- Jess! Chri-“ Sam stutters. 

“Easy cowboy,” Gabriel says, tugging on Sam’s hand. “S’like this Robert Singer, Jess, me and Sam love each other very much. In that way if you know what I mean.

A waggle of Gabriel's eyebrows has Bobby rolling his eyes and stomping back into the house without a word. Jess follows, casting a look at Sam, who’s still sputtering. 

When she gets in to the dining room, Bobby’s standing at his desk, he’s got an ancient looking book open and he’s sipping from his tumbler of whiskey. Gabriel and Sam come tumbling into the house after her. 

“Bobby, I’m sorry, I should’ve called,” Sam’s looking like a kicked puppy. Again. She refuses to acknowledge how cute it is. 

“It’s up to you all what you do with your love lives. Can we get to the picture here? Time’s a-wasting.” Bobby spins the book around. “Can’t believe I didn’t think of this before, but there’s a way here in this book that talks on how we can get an archangel to reach a hand down into purgatory and pull a brother out. Castiel’s an angel and I’m thinkin’ Cas won’t leave without Dean.”

Gabriel pulls the book out of Bobby’s hand, marches himself into a corner and sits with the book. Jess’ stomach growls and Sam and Bobby stare at her. 

“Lunch time?” She asks. There’s nothing else they can do so Bobby cobbles together sandwiches from the lunch meat, stale bread and cheese lying around. Sam opens beers and hands her one and they silently go outside, letting Gabriel have his space. 

When she’s gotten a couple bites of food settled in her stomach, she breaks the stomach silence, looking over at Sam who’s sitting next to her and to Bobby who’s leaning on his rather unstable looking porch fence. “How did you find this Bobby?”

He shifts on his feet. “Looks like I’ve had the book for years, just let it sit at the bottom of the pile for no obvious reason. Chuck sent it to me, said not to open it for a year from the date I received it. That was yesterday. Woulda come in handy if I’d got it years back, probably would have helped out with the apocalypse. But.. Well, you can’t rush a man’s second sight, visions or whatever. Why’d we let him fade off the map anyways? Sam?” 

“No idea,” Sam says after chewing, swallowing his latest bite. He’s going to bitch about lack of vegetables later, when they’re not caught up in the middle of whatever this is. “We should call him.” 

“Who's Chuck?” Jess looks between the two of them. Obviously he was important, but, well, who knows. 

“He’s a prophet of the Lord. Hold on a sec,” Bobby gets up, ignores Sam’s mild protest and disappears into his house. Jess turns back to Sam who just shakes his head, hand to forehead. He tells her not to ask so she just goes back to eating her sandwich. Presumably, Bobby will come back out and clear up the confusion. 

He does two minutes later, return, with a pile of crumpled dusty paperback books in his hands, which he hands to her, forcing her to put her plate on her knees and try and balance it while putting these books down. She takes the first one up, Supernatural, and wonders what on earth was going on with the cover, two shirtless men. Turning to the back cover, she pales. Her name is inscribed there, right there with Sam’s and Dean’s. “What is this?” She looks up, looking between the two men. 

“It’s how we found Chuck in the first place,” Sam says. “We were in a used book store, trying to follow up on a lead in a case when the store keeper wouldn’t believe that we were FBI, thought we were, what was the word Bobby?”

“LARPers”

“Yeah, LARPers, thought we were dressing up as if we were these two characters, named us and everything.” Sam shakes his head. “Turns out the books are exact stories of our lives, down to the littlest details.” 

“I.. I see, I see how that could be terrifying,” Jess says, pulling open the book, morbidly curious to read her ‘death’ scene. Sam’s shaking his head and he pulls the book out of her grasp.

“Don’t.. Just, don’t. I don’t want you to see it. And uh, he’s very graphic. I um,” Sam’s cheeks are getting pinker by the second. 

“I’ll do it,” Gabriel is standing just outside the door, book in hand. “But this book? It was handed down by God. Dad brought me back partially for this purpose, I think.” 

Jess gapes at him, his expression is.. Different than she’s used to seeing on him. “Ok,” Sam says, standing, rubbing the palms of his hands down his jeans. “What do you need, Can I- Gabriel,” Sam’s reach over to him, but Gabriel jerks away. 

“What is it, Gabriel?” Jess asks quietly. 

“There’s a chance I could get stuck in between. I don’t.. I don’t want to get stuck,” Gabriel lets her slide her hand into his as she leans into him. 

“You don’t have to do it, Gabriel” and she waves a hand at sam and Bobby, trying to keep their noises of protest out. 

“I do.” Gabriel straightens out, voice strengthening. “That’s my brother and his most loved being down there.” 

“He- What?” Sam asks, sounding befuddled. 

“You didn’t know?” Gabriel says finally, smile quirking his lips. 

“Know what?” 

“Dean and Castiel are sitting in a treeee,” Gabriel sings out, grinning, eyes crinkling. 

“Oh god,” Sam sits down. “Yes, how didn’t I see this before?” he finally asks. 

“You’re a blind bat when it comes to your brother?” Gabriel finally says. 

The bitch face that translates as “I don’t appreciate what you’re insinuating,” is the only response. Silence falls for a few moments until Bobby huffs and goes back inside, muttering about stupid idiots who can’t ever communicate. 

“Look, I’ll do this, I’m doing this for you Sam, but if I don’t succeed, I need you to find me a way out.” Gabriel’s poking Sam in the chest. 

“I promise, Gabriel. I need you.” Sam smiles shakily. Gabriel smiles at that. 

“Is there something we can do? Can we.. Can we serve as your grounding to Earth?” Jess asks. “I don’t want you to have to do this all by yourself.”

“There is, I need the two of you to focus on how wonderful you think I am, what a sexually competent and perfect being I am and how if I ever leave you, you’ll be broken beyond belief and that you can’t live without me,” Gabriel says and Jess laughs, but she gets the meaning behind the words. 

“OK, Gabriel, I think we can do that, stud muffin. Love you,” Jess says before she can stop herself. She hasn’t said the words before but they’re true. 

“I love you, Gabe,” Sam breaks in before Gabriel can get beyond blinking owlishly at her. 

“Well!” He finally says. “Now that’s all in the open, let’s get this shit started, how about it?” He jerks himself free and stomps back into the dining room. He’s not angry, Jess thinks, but, well, it’s probably he’s nervous and hiding it.


	26. Chapter 26

Gabriel is standing in the middle of the dining room, Bobby’s desk is gone and Bobby looks about half an inch from throttling the angel. 

“Don’t you worry kiddo, I’ll bring your desk back for ya when we get back… Probably.” Gabriel frowns a little before grinning brightly again. “Now, Sammy-boy, I need you to stand to my left and Jess to my right. Don’t touch me unless you want to witness purgatory for yourselves.” He stands, hands in front of him. “Let’s get this party started.” Without any warning, Gabriel’s eyes close and this light starts glowing in him, around him, out of him. When he opens his mouth, he speaks in a language that no one in the room has heard before, although Jess is fairly convinced that it is not Enochian, since Sam had talked about how Dean’s ears had almost burst at the noise when Castiel had tried to speak enochian to him in his true form. 

She focuses on how it felt to see Gabriel again after weeks of not seeing him, how it felt to spend a couple months just working with him, playing with him, learning from him, how powerful it was to have him come find her in her heaven and tell her she was needed on earth again, that she was important enough to get a trip back to earth, that he knew she would want to go back to Earth. She focuses on his love for Sam that he gave her so much, gave without (much) thought to himself. 

She remembers flying with him, remembers how it felt to kill her first ghost that had been torturing poor souls, how Gabriel had come to her defense when she had been learning about vampires, how he had smote the entire nest of vampires, had been so protective of her. 

His light falters and flickers but comes back strong and Jess continues to think of him, think of their relationship and she doesn’t even look at Sam, knowing he’s doing the same. It’s when Gabriel slips forward a little that she doesn’t even think about it, but she puts her hand on his shoulder and she’s no longer in Bobby’s living room, but in a dark forest, rushing through. She thinks she sees a tan coat leaning over a crumpled form and hears Sam’s garbled yell and Gabriel seems to see it too, where he rushes in the direction. When the being looks up, Jess knows they’ve found Castiel, despite the scruffy look, there’s something very not human about him, but he greets the sight of Gabriel as you would a sibling you weren’t fond of. She can see the outline of Sam on Gabriel’s other side, but he’s staring at the man prostrate on the ground. When she looks again, she can see that it’s Dean, Sam’s brother that she only ever met once. 

“Castiel,” Gabriel’s voice is unearthly, creepy. “We have come for you and Dean.”

“Brother, I am weary and glad of your arrival.” Castiel leans down, hoists Dean over his shoulder and takes Gabriel’s outstretched hand. Bobby’s shouting something and she blinks, blinks again and she’s lying on the ground in Bobby’s living room while Bobby is shouting Dean’s name, Sam is passed out next to her, a Gabriel sized space between the two of them. Castiel is standing, weaving slightly in his still posture and Gabriel is crouched over the other man prostrate on the ground, hand on his chest. Jess crawls over, wondering, but catching a glimpse of Dean, she knows that Gabriel can do it, they are simply flesh wounds. Despite knowing he is capable of healing Sam’s brother, she puts her hand on his shoulder again, offering herself, offering her love.

It seems like hours, but is probably only minutes later that Gabriel sits back, lets himself slump to sitting and Jess pulls his head to her shoulder. Castiel is sitting on the couch, looking about two seconds from sleep and Sam is still out cold. She looks up to Bobby who is looking down at the Winchester brothers, both so still, expression torn between joy and horror. 

“Bobby?” She finally mutters. 

“Yeah?” 

“Why’s Sam still asleep?”

“The demon blood in Sam will always make walking between worlds much more difficult for him than most human beings,” Castiel intones. It’s the first words he’s spoken and Jess blinks at the voice that is so incongruent with the man’s features. Jess nods, it makes sense with what they've told her about. "Thank you, Jessica Moore,” He adds. 

“I-“

“Angel, babe,” Gabriel’s voice breaks in. “He knows the names of everyone he ever meets without introductions. You could call it a superpower, if you want.” She huffs a laugh. 

*  
Gabriel moves Sam and Dean to beds in a room upstairs and Jess crawls in next to Sam as Gabriel and Cas settle near each other. She thinks they’re probably catching up but doesn’t have the energy to think more about it.   
The next thing she’s aware of is long limbs moving next to her, an arm snaking around her waist and pulling her closer, fingers combing through her hair, lips finding hers. She responds slowly as she wakes and remembers that she’s still in bed with Sam. He’s got her shirt rucked up until a croaky voice startles the quiet. “Dude, no sex while I’m in the room. Rule # 5”  
She yelps and yanks her shirt back down, memories flooding through her as she jack knifes into a sitting position, accidentally elbowing Sam on the way. Dean’s propped himself up on his elbow and is staring blearily at her. “Dean! You’re awake!”   
“And you.. Are alive.” He eyes her and she blushes.   
“Ah. Yes.. Gabriel brought me back.” She reaches over and takes Sam’s hand.  
“He’s not dead?”  
So the Gabriel coming back to life thing happened after Dean went to Purgatory.   
“What, Dean-o, no love for the guy who told you how to stop the apocalypse?” Gabriel’s suddenly in the room and Dean blinks.   
“Where’s Cas?” Dean’s looking around, finally tearing his eyes off Sam.   
“Right here.” Cas is standing the door and Jess jumps slightly. Dean takes the moment to make his way to standing.   
“Good. Sammy..” Dean’s swaying and Sam grabs his elbow, pulls him into a hug. “Missed you, man.”   
“Dean- God. It’s.. We tried everything.”  
“I know, man. I know.”  
“What, no multitudes showering praise at my feet? I deserve it, after all.” Gabriel turns into the room, and Jess feels a grin light up her face. Everyone’s here.


End file.
